Capitol Insider: Recent Episodes
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A discussion of the week's news from Oklahoma's State Capitol between KGOU Public Radio's Dick Pryor and Quorum Call's Shawn Ashley, plus interviews with newsmakers.
It did not take long after the presidential election for State Superintendent Ryan Walters to expand the push for religious initiatives in Oklahoma schools.
With the general election over, the new legislature is set to begin with lawmakers preparing for the 2025 legislative session.
We discuss the November 5th general election and how it could impact the next Oklahoma legislature.
State Board of Education holds shortened meeting after learning its the contract of its legal counsel was not being renewed.
Oklahoma Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax provides an update on when, where, and how to vote in the 2024 General Election.
A legal decision involving the St. Isidore of Seville Catholic Virtual Charter School may be the next Oklahoma case heard at the U.S. Supreme Court.
Lawmakers aren't in session, but are looking ahead to next year and coming up with ideas for potential bills
A leading Oklahoma economist says the Oklahoma economy is holding up well, but concerns are growing about education and workforce.
Governor announces more than 450,000 names of ineligible voters have been removed from registration prior to 2024 general election.
The Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency is moving toward a date to begin investigation of funding practices at the Oklahoma State Department of Education.
As they seek a successor to outgoing Chancellor Allison Garrett, the State Board of Regents issues a new report showing strong employment results for recent graduates.
Three more incumbent legislators have lost in the Oklahoma primary elections. Two of those losing this year were in powerful House and Senate positions.
Attorney General Gentner Drummond issues legal opinion requiring state school board to permit certain legislators to attend executive session meetings.
Dr. Robert Dauffenbach analyzes the state of the national and Oklahoma economies, and sees warning signs of a possible downturn ahead.
Get ready for more divisive, hyper-partisan politics in the weeks leading up to the General Election in November, predicts Oklahoma political scientist.
Attorney General Gentner Drummond is in the process of determining whether the State Board of Education violated the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act during its July meeting.
Attorney General Gentner Drummond is in the process of determining whether the State Board of Education violated the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act during its July meeting.
Historic developments in the last two weeks have dramatically changed the dynamics in the highly consequential 2024 presidential election.
It's not final yet, but State Senate Republicans have elected Lonnie Paxton of Tuttle to succeed Greg Treat as Senate President Pro Tempore.
State Superintendent Ryan Walters has announced plans to dramatically change social studies standards for state schools and appoints the committee to guide revisions.
As of July 1st, almost a hundred new laws are now on the books in Oklahoma. Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley discusses some that stand out.
Who will succeed Greg Treat as Senate President Pro Tempore? That question seemed to be answered until the senator in line to move into the position lost in the primary.
The lawmaker set to become the next state Senate President Pro Tempore lost in his bid for re-election, sending the Oklahoma Senate into unprecedented territory.
Governor Kevin Stitt has called the State Senate back to the Capitol for a special session to consider the appointment of Mike Holder to the OSU Board of Regents.
Governor Kevin Stitt has until June 14th to sign bills passed in the final week of the Oklahoma legislative session. He quickly signed the "Women's Bill of Rights."
The 2024 Oklahoma legislative session is over, concluding one day ahead of the legally-mandated deadline.
It took until the final two weeks of the session, but the governor and legislative leaders reached agreement on the fiscal year 2025 budget. Now, it's crunch time.
Budget summit meetings have been moving the state budget and appropriation process forward, but lawmakers have yet to reach an agreement on the fiscal year 2025 budget.
Oklahoma legislators continue to work through a variety of issues as they craft the fiscal year 2025 state budget...and time is running short.
It appeared legislative leaders were making progress on the budget for fiscal year 2025, but now the process is starting over with less than a month left in the session.
A critical state audit report and the effect of a little known legislative procedure known as "shucking" highlights a hectic week at the state Capitol.
The state House and Senate are starting to see areas of agreement as they restart the process to craft a state budget for fiscal year 2025.
Lawmakers still have heavy lifting to do on significant legislation as they head toward Sine Die Adjournment at the end of May.
Oklahoma legislative leaders disagree over the path forward toward developing the state budget for the next fiscal year.
Democratic lawmakers have again called on Speaker of the House Charles McCall to form a bipartisan committee to investigate State Superintendent Ryan Walters.
As legislators return to work following spring break, the stage is set for budget talks to gain momentum.
The middle of March is spring break time for lawmakers. We look ahead at the work to be done in the tumultuous final weeks of the 2024 legislative session.
A legal opinion from Attorney General Gentner Drummond forced a member of Governor Stitt's cabinet to resign. Now, the governor is seeking legal action against the AG.
Governor Kevin Stitt has signed into law a bill that received bipartisan support to reduce the state's grocery sales tax rate.
After years of discussion and votes that carried over from 2023 to 2024, the Oklahoma House and Senate have sent to the governor a bill that reduces the tax on groceries.
Lawmakers now know they will have a record $14 billion to appropriate for fiscal year 2025 following certification of available funds by the State Board of Equalization.
After Governor Kevin Stitt's State of the State Address, legislators began reviewing bills and joint resolutions in the Second Regular Session of the 59th Legislature.
Lawmakers are returning to the State Capitol on Monday to convene the new regular legislative session and hear the governor's State of the State Address.
House and Senate leaders take differing views on Governor Kevin Stitt's special session call to cut the individual income tax rate.
Governor Kevin Stitt wants legislators to convene a special session to cut the state's income tax rate before the regular legislative session begins on February 5.
The Five Civilized Tribes have rejected an invitation to serve on a task force created to address Governor Stitt's concerns about the impact of the McGirt decision.
When they return to the Capitol in February, Oklahoma legislators will have $1.3 Billion more to appropriate in the fiscal year 2025 budget than they did last year.
We close out 2023 with our Capitol Insider Top Ten Oklahoma Stories of the year. This segment, Part 2, highlights stories five through one.
We close the year with the top ten Oklahoma stories of 2023, as reported and discussed each week on Capitol Insider. This segment, Part 1, looks at stories ten through six.
Governor Kevin Stitt has signed a new executive order to limit diversity, equity and inclusion practices and programs at state agencies and higher education institutions.
Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat has announced a plan to make the state's budget and appropriations process more transparent during the 2024 legislative session.
The Oklahoma Tax Commission has delayed for a few days the application period for parents to apply for income tax credits to send their children to private schools.
Less than a year remains before the 2024 general election. We talk to Oklahoma Election Board Secretary Paul Ziriax about preparations for statewide voting next year.
The Oklahoma Supreme Court has enjoined implementation of three Oklahoma anti-abortion laws from 2021 following a legal challenge.
Lawmakers heard from tribal leaders during a two-day interim study looking at compacts between the State of Oklahoma and sovereign Native American nations.
On November 1st, more than 200 bills became law in Oklahoma. We talk about a few of them this week on Capitol Insider.
State Superintendent Ryan Walters listens to a presentation at the February 2023 State Board of Education meeting.(Beth Wallis / StateImpact Oklahoma)The House Democratic Caucus is seeking formation of a committee to investigate State Superintendent Ryan Walters and consider whether impeachment is warranted.
TRANSCRIPT
Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider – taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. The House Democratic Caucus has made a formal and public request for Speaker of the House Charles McCall to form a committee to consider the impeachment of State Superintendent Ryan Walters. That caucus is small and has little power, but where there is smoke, there is sometimes fire. Shawn, what's going on?
Shawn Ashley: House Democrats who also received the support of the Senate Democratic Caucus in their request, want to know whether grounds exist for the House to impeach Walters, House Minority Leader Cyndi Munson said Tuesday. They asked McCall to form a bipartisan committee to conduct an investigation. Munson pointed to what she called outright lies by Walters and targeted attacks on local control, a reference to the Tulsa Public Schools accreditation situation and ongoing criminal investigation into potential financial mismanagement of State Department of Education funds and a continued refusal by Walters to cooperate in good faith with lawmakers. Munson and other House Democrats also noted what they called “Walters’ consistent pattern of inflammatory language aimed at the state's public education teachers.”
Dick Pryor: Is there sentiment in the legislature for impeaching Ryan Walters?
Shawn Ashley: McCall said Tuesday impeachment was not something that should be broached lightly. He also said the call by House Democrats seemed to be more of a, quote, ready, fire aim approach. But some Republicans, including McCall, have made comments that seem to be aimed at Walters, albeit without mentioning his name, particularly for his rhetoric and activity on social media. McCall, just a few days earlier, had said, for example, “we must get the focus back on student outcomes and away from political rhetoric. I'm calling on all involved parties to end the rhetoric and do better for the children of Oklahoma.” Representative Jeff Boatman said Wednesday, “whether we are posting social media content or reposting it, public servants have a duty to put the best interests of our most vulnerable first. Controversy, divisiveness and fearmongering are not ever in the best interest.”
Dick Pryor: Governor Kevin Stitt is seeing considerable opposition to a lawsuit he filed to invalidate two bills that passed during the special session that he had vetoed and the legislature then overrode the vetoes. Both pertained to tribal compacts. The governor has had dozens of vetoes overridden. Is this the first time he has sued the legislature to fight overrides?
Shawn Ashley: It is. And it may be the first time ever an Oklahoma governor has sued the legislature over bills it approved. Governor Stitt's lawsuit argues the bills were passed and the vetoes overridden inappropriately during a special session that ran concurrently with the regular session and he also contends they conflict with the constitutional powers of the governor. The legislature responded to the lawsuit August 28th and argued the action in concurrent special session was legal and not unprecedented, and that the governor's authority to negotiate compacts comes from state statute, which is determined by the legislature, not solely the Oklahoma Constitution.
The legislature also received support from Attorney General Gentner Drummond and three tribes - the Choctaw, Cherokee, and Chickasaw Nations - which are all affected by the bills. They, too, argued the governor's compacting authority arises from state statutes, and the bills do not diminish his constitutional duties or authority.
Dick Pryor: Governor Stitt continues to push for cutting income taxes and grocery sales taxes. Shawn. He says the fact the state has the most money ever in its savings account is reason to cut taxes. Remind us what the savings account is for.
Shawn Ashley: Well, when Governor Stitt came into office, he expressed concern that the state had so little money in its savings accounts in the event of an economic downturn. How do you offset those revenue losses? And he told a southern Oklahoma radio station in an interview August 22nd that the state has been able to build up the balances through good economic times, which produced good state revenue collections. But let's not forget, economic downturns in Oklahoma are sort of like drought. History has shown us it's not a matter of if it's going to happen, but a matter of when.
Dick Pryor: And we know that's true. Thanks, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: That's Capitol Insider. For more information, go to quorumcall.online. You can find audio and transcripts at kgou.org and listen to Capitol Insider where you get your podcasts. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
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As temperatures continue to hover around the century mark, the stress is showing in various ways. Efforts are underway to help mitigate effects of the extreme heat.
Reliable broadband service is essential in today's world, and we discuss Oklahoma's plan for improving access with the new executive director of the Oklahoma Broadband Office.
With the special session over, Oklahoma lawmakers are now turning their attention to matters that may make it into bills introduced during the 2024 legislative session.
After two vetoes are overridden, Governor Kevin Stitt asks the Oklahoma Supreme Court for ruling on whether the legislature has authority over state-tribal compacts.
As the special session nears an end, conflict over state-tribal compacts arises, involving the legislature, governor, attorney general, and prominent tribal nations.
In an effort to increase voter participation and less partisanship, an Oklahoma group is pushing for electoral reforms that would change Oklahoma primary elections.
Oklahoma legislators have until the end of July to act on gubernatorial vetoes and budget bills in a special session before the session adjourns.
A year ago, the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department was facing numerous challenges, but things are looking up at state parks as the summer vacation season begins.
State Superintendent Ryan Walters has proposed enforcing a state law that requires Oklahoma schools to begin each class day with a minute of silence for prayer.
As the legislative special session about the state budget hits a lull, House Democrats are seeking information on the status of federal education grants and expenditures.
With the deadline for the end of the special session coming June 30th, Oklahoma lawmakers are wrapping up their legislative work for 2023.
(Senate Press Photographer)Governor Kevin Stitt has been taking action on various bills passed during the 2023 regular session, including vetoing two bills related to state-tribal compacts.
TRANSCRIPT
Capitol Insider sponsored by the Oklahoma State Medical Association, physician members who are committed to better health for all Oklahomans. Learn more at okmed.org.
Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. Shawn, Thursday was the deadline for Governor Stitt to sign or veto bills passed in the special session. What has he done?
Shawn Ashley: Governor Stitt neither signed nor vetoed most of the bills. Now, because the legislature adjourned the special session May 26 to the call of the chair and not Sine Die, Governor Stitt had five days excluding Sunday to act on the bills and those he did not act on become law absent his signature. The governor did something similar in 2022 - acting on a few of the bills that implemented this fiscal year budget, but allowing most of them, including the general appropriations bill, to take effect absent his signature.
Dick Pryor: The only two bills he acted on related to compacts with Native American nations, and he vetoed both of them. What was the governor's reasoning?
Shawn Ashley: Those bills would have allowed the tribes to extend their tobacco and motor vehicle tax compacts through December 2024, essentially for a year. Stitt wrote in his veto messages that “the bills circumvented the governor's authority to negotiate compacts, noting the bills were passed in the special session, not the regular session.” He pointed out that the Bills did not match the legislature's call or agenda for the special session, which focused on the FY 2024 budget and appropriation of the state's remaining American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA funds. Finally, he raised what I thought was kind of an interesting point. The bills were passed during a special session that met at the same time as the regular session, Governor Stitt wrote, “While a special session may have run concurrently with the regular session before, it does not mean such an occurrence is constitutional.
Dick Pryor: So how much longer does the governor have to sign or veto bills passed in the regular session?
Shawn Ashley: The governor has 15 days from Sine Die, including Sundays, to sign or veto the bills passed during the final five days of the regular session. And because the regular session adjourned, Sine Die on May 26th those bills the governor does not act on by June 10th will be considered vetoed, a pocket veto.
Dick Pryor: The Oklahoma Supreme Court has found two Oklahoma anti-abortion laws to be unconstitutional. Where does that leave abortion law in the state now?
Shawn Ashley: This is really sort of fascinating. Wednesday's decision, combined with the Oklahoma Supreme Court's decision at the end of March that another anti-abortion law passed in 2022 was unconstitutional, turns back the clock, first to June 24th, 2022. That's when the U.S. Supreme Court overruled the Roe and Casey decisions that made abortion legal in the US. And it was on that day that then Attorney General John O'Connor certified that Oklahoma's existing statute that bans and criminalizes the performance of abortions could once again be in force. And that statute turns the clock back even further to 1910 when abortion was made illegal in the state of Oklahoma.
Dick Pryor: There were not many anti-abortion bills presented in the just completed regular session. Could that change next year?
Shawn Ashley: I think it could. Some lawmakers, such as Senator Julie Daniels, who was the Senate author of the two laws found unconstitutional Wednesday, had hoped to clarify those laws so that they would not be found unconstitutional through Senate Bill 834. But that bill did not make its way all the way through the legislative process. “I'm gravely disappointed and saddened that we stood silent,” Daniels said on Wednesday and added, “we still have options. We must work quickly and we must work together.”
Dick Pryor: Next year, censures of state Representatives Mauree Turner and Dean Davis will carry over. Both were censured in March and lost their committee memberships for more than half the session. What makes the continuation of their censures possible?
Shawn Ashley: A legislature is made up of two regular sessions, one in the odd numbered year and one in the even numbered year. And a lot of what happens in the first session carries over into the second session, including, we were told. Turner and Davis's censures. Under the terms of the motion approved by the House the duo will need to formally apologize to the chamber to have their censures lifted and their committee memberships reinstated.
Dick Pryor: Thank you, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. For more information, go to quorumcall.online. You can find audio and transcripts at kgou.org and listen to Capitol Insider where you get your podcasts. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
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(Cool Kats Photography / Flickr)TRANSCRIPT
Capitol Insider sponsored by the Oklahoma State Medical Association, committed to connecting Oklahoma physicians with matters that are important to Oklahoma patients. More on the vision and mission of OSMA at okmed.org.
Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. The first session of the 59th Oklahoma Legislature is over. By law, the House and Senate must adjourn Sine Die by 5 p.m. on the final Friday in May. Shawn, it's a 16-week grind and it took all that time for legislators to negotiate, agree to, and pass the state budget. What are the highlights of the fiscal year 2024 budget?
Shawn Ashley: The budget totals $12.8 billion, a new state record. Eleven point-three billion of that is recurring spending - money that they should appropriate again next year and the year after that. And that's a new record, as well. While it includes record appropriations for the Department of Education, $3.9 billion, more than a $800 million increase, a lot of state agencies were held flat and saw no new funding. Now, the budget also includes some tax reductions, but not broad-based tax cuts like the individual income tax reduction or elimination of the sales tax on groceries that Governor Kevin Stitt had called for. Some of those reductions include the school choice tax credits, elimination of the marriage penalty, and elimination of the state's franchise tax.
Dick Pryor: So, what does Governor Stitt think about the budget lawmakers have sent to him?
Shawn Ashley: Well, he said Friday as lawmakers were still considering some of the bills, that he's going to look it over. He did express concern that lawmakers may have spent too much recurring revenue and may have dipped too deeply into the state's reserve funds for one-time expenditures. Stitt also said he is considering calling lawmakers back for another special session that would focus on reducing the individual income tax rate, something he has called for for several years now, but the legislature has yet to deliver, largely because of the Senate's concern on the long-term impact on state revenues.
Dick Pryor: Shawn, not only did the budget come together late, but overrides of gubernatorial vetoes happened late and fast.
Shawn Ashley: Yes, they did. Lawmakers overrode 13 of Stitt’s vetoes on Thursday, including several of the Senate bill vetoes he issued April 26th when he threatened to keep vetoing Senate bills until they came to an agreement on the school choice tax credit program, education funding, and a tax cut. The bills vetoed April 26th have become known around the Capitol as the “Tantrum 20,” and a couple of senators and at least one representative referred to Stitt’s tantrum that resulted in the vetoes. A number of other vetoes passed just one chamber, so those bills will not become law.
Dick Pryor: What vetoes did the House and Senate override?
Shawn Ashley: Among the 13 overridden Thursday were House Bill 2820, the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority Re-authorization. Senate Bill 429, the bill permitting students to wear tribal regalia at high school and college graduations. House Bill 2263, which reorganizes the membership of the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority, reducing the governor's number of appointees to two, and giving the House speaker and Senate president pro tem two appointments each. And Senate Bill 951, which increases the travel allowance for county commissioners and sheriffs. And then, of course, there were nine other overrides, as well.
Dick Pryor: With the regular session adjourning Sine Die, what are important dates ahead?
Shawn Ashley: Governor Stitt has until Thursday to sign or veto the budget bills passed in special session. He has until June 10th to act on the bills passed during the final five days of the regular session. And if lawmakers come back to override vetoes of any of the special session budget bills that is tentatively scheduled to take place on June 12th. But keep in mind, they would be dealing only with bills from the special session that the governor has vetoed. They would not be able to address any regular session vetoes that day. And if lawmakers don't reconvene the special session and adjourn it Sine Die before June 30th, it will adjourn Sine Die automatically on that day under the terms of a resolution adopted Friday.
Dick Pryor: It's been quite a ride this year. Thank you, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. For more information, go to quorumcall.online. You can find audio and transcripts at kgou.org and listen to Capitol Insider where you get your podcasts. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
Announcer: Two men of color vanished after last being seen in the same deputy's patrol car. “I knew something was wrong. A mother knows. That's the strangest case and most unsettling case.” Listen to the Last Ride podcast, part of the NPR Network.
(KGOU - Dick Pryor)With education funding bills now approved, the House and Senate are working quickly to draft the state budget for the next fiscal year.
TRANSCRIPT
Announcer: Capitol Insider sponsored by the Oklahoma State Medical Association. Keeping Oklahoma physicians informed about advances in medical technologies, treatments and after care. More on the vision and mission of OSMA at okmed.org.
Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. For months dispute over additional education funding held up a lot of the work at the Capitol. After the speaker of the house, senate president pro tem and governor announced an agreement last Monday, those bills are now moving, Shawn. Where do the education bills stand?
Shawn Ashley: The bills received final approval in the House and Senate on Friday morning and are on their way to Governor Stitt’s desk. The governor is expected to sign them, perhaps as early as Tuesday, since he helped broker the deal. Now, the agreement and the bills include $500 million in new money that will cover a teacher's pay raise, six weeks of maternity leave for teachers, and more money in the classroom. The deal also includes an additional $125 million for the Redbud program that helps school districts that do not have much local property tax revenue with school building and other infrastructure projects, $150 million for a three-year school safety pilot program that focuses on hiring school resource officers and physical improvements to make schools safer, and $50 million for a three-year literacy pilot program.
Dick Pryor: With just a week left in the regular session, there is a concurrent special session ongoing to work on the budget. The state budget is the one thing legislators are required to do each year, but with time running out, they still have not finished it. What is their plan to draft and pass the state budget?
Shawn Ashley: I think we will be hearing something about a budget agreement pretty soon, particularly now that the education funding issue is settled. Now, what we will see is that these bills no later than Tuesday will go through the Joint Committee on Appropriations and Budget process. Then they will be heard on the House and Senate floors on Wednesday and then in the opposite chambers on Friday. If they can move that up to earlier consideration, it would give them that much more lead time to get the work done. Now, legislative leaders realized they were not going to be able to get an agreement and pass the budget in time to override any gubernatorial vetoes in the regular session. That's why they called the special session, with the budget bills being considered in special session lawmakers can come back in June to override any budget bill vetoes Stitt issues, and their plan appears to be to come back probably one day in June for just that purpose.
Dick Pryor: There are also substantive policy bills to deal with relating to non-budget items that need to be handled. Those will not be taken up in the special session. So realistically, how many of them can the legislature address in the final week?
Shawn Ashley: Well, in the final week we actually have two sessions taking place simultaneously, the regular session and the special session and the House and Senate will switch back and forth between those two throughout the course of each day. There's no doubt the budget will eat up a lot of that time, and that leaves less time for the non-budget bills to be considered. House Majority Floor Leader John Echols and Senate Majority Floor Leader Greg McCortney will really earn their money making sure all the budget bills get passed and the policy bills that need to be considered get heard. Senate Majority Floor Leader Greg McCortney said on Friday, “be prepared to work a lot next week,” he told those senators.
Dick Pryor: That's for sure. What's the status of potential overrides of gubernatorial vetoes?
Shawn Ashley: Legislative leaders have said they are discussing Stitt’s more than 40 vetoes - trying to decide which ones will get overridden and which ones might not. McCortney told members on Friday morning that how busy they are on May 26th, and he pointed to that day specifically, depends on what the governor does between now and the last day of the regular session.
Dick Pryor: Legislators do have a lot of work to do quickly in the final week of the session, but as we've seen before, there could be surprises.
Shawn Ashley: Yeah, we've seen it in the past. Big pieces of legislation that we've not seen before or we thought were not going to make it through the legislative session suddenly popping up right at the very end. It's definitely a possibility and it's one of the things that makes the last week very, very exciting.
Dick Pryor: It does, and we're staying right on top of all of it. Thank you, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. For more information, go to quorumcall.online. You can find audio and transcripts at kgou.org, and listen to Capitol Insider where you get your podcasts. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
Announcer: Two men of color vanished after last being seen in the same deputy's patrol car. “I knew something was wrong.A mother knows.” “That's the strangest case and most unsettling case.” Listen to the Last Ride podcast, part of the NPR Network.
(russavia / Creative Commons)Only two weeks remain in the 2023 legislative regular session, and lawmakers are still seeking agreement on education funding and state budget for the next fiscal year.
TRANSCRIPT
Announcer: Capitol Insider sponsored by the Oklahoma State Medical Association, physician members who devote more than 11 years of higher education and 10,000 clinical hours in study to provide care for all Oklahomans. More at okmed.org.
Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. Shawn, only two weeks are left in the regular session and one of the things Governor Kevin Stitt says he wants this year is tax cuts. Where does that stand now?
Shawn Ashley: Governor Stitt continues to encourage lawmakers to pass a tax cut, either an individual income tax rate reduction or elimination of the state sales tax on groceries, or maybe even both. Stitt asked Thursday if lawmakers won't pass a tax cut this year when they have plentiful reserves, when will they pass it? Now, none of the tax cut bills passed this year by the House got a hearing on the Senate floor. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat continues to say that the Senate is concerned about future revenues. Treat notes that the reserves Stitt and House Speaker Charles McCall point to can quickly go away. And he said recently, “that while times are good now, it's not a question of if, but when the state will face its next revenue downturn.
All that being said, we need to remember both chambers have passed the school choice tax credit plan, which is a tax cut for parents of private school and homeschool students. Its impact is capped at $150 million in 2024, $200 million in 2025 and $250 million in 2026 and subsequent tax years. That third year $250 million revenue loss is just a little bit more than the impact of a quarter point individual income tax rate reduction.”
Dick Pryor: The tax credit plan, teacher pay raises, and K-12 education funding remains a sticking point between the House and Senate. Efforts to reach a compromise on that fell apart Thursday. So, what's happening?
Shawn Ashley: Treat told reporters Thursday that negotiators had come to an agreement Wednesday night, but on Thursday, the House asked for more money. Speaker McCall said Thursday there was no formal agreement Wednesday and his team put a proposal in writing on Thursday for a $700 million plan. Now, that proposal is $100 million more, Treat said, than what had been agreed to on Wednesday. Now, here's what we know about their plans. They would increase common education funding by $500 million. Around $285 million of that would be for a teacher pay raise. The rest would be distributed to school districts through the state aid formula, and the formula would be changed in such a way that it benefits smaller and oftentimes more rural school districts.
The disagreement is over money that would flow through the Redbud Fund. That fund was established in 2021 to assist eligible charter schools and public school districts with low ad valorem tax bases to acquire and improve school buildings. The Senate is willing to put $100 million into the fund. The House asked Thursday for another $100 million, a total of $200 million to go into that fund, and it's really not clear what's going to happen.
Dick Pryor: In recent years, legislative leaders have unveiled their budget agreement no later than the next to last week of the regular session. That's where we are now. Is there an agreement in sight?
Shawn Ashley: It's really hard to say. Stitt, Treat, and McCall have all talked about how the education funding talks have sucked all the oxygen out of the room for budget negotiations. And that makes sense. Common education is the single largest part of the appropriated budget. Treat and McCall have said their budget teams are continuing to work on the remainder of the budget. Some budget subcommittee chairs I have spoken to have said they already have or have nearly completed their work on the budget in their subcommittee’s areas. So maybe they're closer to a final budget than we think.
Dick Pryor: The House and Senate have been slow playing non-budget bills, but it's getting to crunch time. What's on the agenda for the next five days?
Shawn Ashley: They have hundreds of policy bills to consider and those have been sitting in conference committee waiting for movement. Perhaps they will begin to move. And then there's consideration of the budget itself and this education funding deal if they can ever reach one.
Dick Pryor: A lot of moving parts right now. Thank you, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. For more information, go to quorumcall.online. You can find audio and transcripts at kgou.org and listen to Capitol Insider where you get your podcasts. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
KGOU produces journalism in the public interest, which is critical to an informed electorate. Listeners like you provide essential funding for Capitol Insider. Make your contribution at kgou.org.
Announcer: Two men of color vanished after last being seen in the same deputy's patrol car. “I knew something was wrong. A mother knows.” “That's the strangest case and most unsettling case.” Listen to the Last Ride podcast, part of the NPR Network.
TRANSCRIPT
Announcer: Capitol Insider sponsored by the Oklahoma State Medical Association, committed to fostering health care in rural Oklahoma through education and public and private partnerships. More on OSMA at okmed.org.
Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. Shawn, the legislature is just three weeks away from the day legally required for adjournment. In the last week, the House passed one bill and the Senate passed zero bills. How close are lawmakers to completing their work, including the budget for the fiscal year beginning July 1st?
Shawn Ashley: There's still really a lot of work to be done. Lawmakers have more than 340 bills that they could consider that are not related to the budget. And that by itself is a lot of work. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat told reporters Thursday that budget negotiations are ongoing, but those talks are taking place under the cloud of the disagreement between the House and the Senate regarding additional funding for common education – the largest part of the budget.
Both Treat and House Speaker Charles McCall have said in the past how hard it is to write a budget when there is no agreement about its largest piece. It should be noted some work has been accomplished. More than 230 bills have passed both chambers and been sent to Governor Kevin Stitt for his consideration. He has signed 195, allowed five of those to take effect without his signature and vetoed 35, including the 20 Senate bills he vetoed April 26th as part of the dispute over education funding.
Dick Pryor: The Senate has voted to override four of Governor Stitt's vetoes. There's a decent chance additional vetoes will be considered for overrides. At this point in the session, how does that process work and how long does it take to override a veto?
Shawn Ashley: Well, procedurally, veto overrides begin in the chamber of origin for a House bill such as House Bill 2820, the bill that reauthorizes the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority, or OETA, that process begins in the House. For a Senate bill such as Senate Bill 429, the bill that protects public school and college students’ rights to wear tribal regalia at on-campus and institutional functions like graduation, the process starts in the Senate. Now, a veto of a bill without an emergency clause needs a two-thirds vote in each chamber. That's the case for House Bill 2820, for example. Senate Bill 429 has an emergency clause, and that requires a three-fourths vote to be overridden. And that emergency clause would allow the bill to take effect earlier than 90 days after the legislature adjourns Sine Die. In this case, on July 1st.
As we saw in the final day of the 2022 regular session, vetoes can be overridden rather quickly. Six of Stitt's vetoes were overridden on the last day of that session, but it does take a bit of time and coordination between the chambers. The House thus far has not taken up the overrides for the vetoes of the four bills that have been overridden by the Senate. The first of those was overridden on April 19th.
Dick Pryor: One bill the governor has signed is already being challenged in court.
Shawn Ashley: That's right. A group of families with transgender adolescents and medical providers who support trans youth filed a lawsuit Tuesday in federal court that challenges Oklahoma's new law banning gender transition medical care for minors, Senate Bill 613, just one day after the bill was signed into law by Governor Stitt. The lawsuit alleges the bill unjustly and unfairly targets them in gender affirming health care in violation of their rights under the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment. The bill took effect immediately upon Stitt’s signature Monday, and the plaintiffs are asking the court to stop it from being implemented. But the court has yet to issue a decision on that request.
Dick Pryor: What do you expect in the week ahead?
Shawn Ashley: I wish I knew. Normally, at this point, lawmakers would spend their time on their chamber’s floors, considering some of those more than 340 bills, as well as the bills that will implement the fiscal year 2024 budget. They didn't do that this past week and it's unclear if they will in the week ahead. If they don't get that done, they could be looking at a special session to finish their work. Asked Thursday if that was a possibility, Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat said, “I certainly hope not, but I'm afraid we will see.”
Dick Pryor: And that is a term we don't really like to hear - special session. Thanks, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. For more information, go to quorumcall.online. You can find audio and transcripts at kgou.org. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
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Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) Oklahoma, 2023 State of the State Address(Abi Ruth Martin / Legislative Service Bureau)TRANSCRIPT
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Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. Shawn, the calendar is turning into the final month of the 2023 regular legislative session. Lawmakers must finish their work by May 26th, but it looks like open warfare has broken out at the Capitol.
Shawn Ashley: It certainly does. And it really all began Wednesday night when Governor Kevin Stitt vetoed 20 Senate bills. His veto message for each bill was the same. Stitt said he would continue to veto any and all legislation authored by senators who have not supported his school choice tax credit, common education funding and tax cut plans. The governor even reiterated that position at a press conference Friday when he said, “I have a hard time continuing to go along to get along with all these side projects and this and that until I get parental choice, until I get tax cuts for all Oklahomans.” In a press conference Thursday, House Speaker Charles McCall joined the governor in calling for the Senate to go along with the governor's school choice, education funding and tax cut plans and said he supported the governor's decision to veto Senate bills until a deal was reached on those proposals.
Now, the governor's action, of course, was not received well in the Senate. Late Thursday night, the Senate Rules Committee rejected Governor Stitt's nominees to be secretary of commerce and secretary of health and mental health. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat told reporters before the committee even acted, “we're going to reject those nominees as long as the governor continues to make vetoes about trying to bully us. We're going to show him that we're going to stand up to bullies.” Now, the Senate passed a new school choice and education funding plan Thursday night and sent it to the House for possible consideration. It provides a tax credit for private school and home school expenses based on a sliding income scale. In other words, the lower a family's household income, the higher the credit will be, and the higher their income, the lower the credit. But Stitt and McCall have expressed opposition to an income cap on tax credit proposals. The plan also includes a larger teacher pay raise than previously discussed and additional funding through the Common Education State Ed funding formula.
The House has previously offered a smaller teacher pay raise and prefers to see money distributed to school districts outside the funding formula and with a limit so that rural schools receive a larger share of the funds. Now, Stitt seemed to downplay his role in the kerfuffle a bit Friday. “It's the end of April here in this building,” the governor said. And he added, “sometimes pressure has to mount a little bit, and it happens every single year.” But I'll say in my more than 20 years in the capitol, I've never seen the top blow off like this.
Dick Pryor: And I have not either. One House bill Stitt vetoed would extend the life of the OETA – the Oklahoma Educational Television Authority. Unless the legislature overrides that veto, OETA would have to begin winding down July 1st and would sunset - cease to exist - in a year. Why is he doing that?
Shawn Ashley: Stitt wrote in his veto message, “although the OETA may have played a principal role in the provision of educational television services at one time, today the OETA's long term strategic value is at best unclear, if not outright imagined.” Asked about that veto Friday, Stitt said, “that to me is an outdated system. It may have had its place in 1957. Why are we spending taxpayer dollars to prop up OETA?”, he asked. “It makes no sense to me.” And he also said some of the programing on OETA supported LGBTQ issues and voices. “Why am I using taxpayer dollars to prop that up? I don't think we need that, and I'm glad to veto that bill.”
Dick Pryor: Shawn, given the turmoil at the Capitol right now, what are you watching for in the week ahead?
Shawn Ashley: Well, lawmakers will continue to hear bills that have made it through the legislative process thus far. Probably the big news will come on Monday when Superintendent of Public Instruction Ryan Walters is scheduled to appear before the House Appropriations and Budget Committee. He rejected an invitation earlier in the session to appear before the House A&B’s Subcommittee on Education. He's expected to talk about the State Department of Education's budget and various initiatives he and the state board have launched. It looks to be an interesting hearing.
Dick Pryor: Yes. It's getting wild at the Capitol. Thank you, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. For more information, go to quorumcall.online. You can find audio and transcripts at kgou.org and listen to Capitol Insider where you get your podcasts. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
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(State Capitol)TRANSCRIPT
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Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. Shawn, we're just a month away from when lawmakers might adjourn the regular legislative session. They must be finished in five weeks by May 26th. But it could come by May 19th or earlier. Do you see that as a possibility this year?
Shawn Ashley: I do. There's a strategic reason for lawmakers to finish their work at least one week before May 26th. That would give Governor Kevin Stitt just five days excluding Sunday to sign or veto the bills lawmakers passed during their last week of work. And it also gives the legislature the opportunity to come back and override any vetoes he issued. Now, that's what they did in 2022. They finished their work May 20th and returned to their chamber floors, May 26th and May 27th. On May 27th, the final day of the 2022 session, they overrode six of Stitt’s vetoes. Now, if the legislature works up until May 26th, when it must adjourn Sine Die according to the Constitution, Governor Stitt will have 15 days to sign or veto the bills they passed during the final five days of the session, and lawmakers will no longer be in session, so they can't attempt to override any of those vetoes.
Dick Pryor: Which means legislators don't have much time to come up with a state budget.
Shawn Ashley: No, they don't. And the first piece of that puzzle continues to be the fight over private school tax credits and additional funding for common education. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat told me on March 2nd, “when you do budgeting, you typically want to get the big rocks in place first, and then you start arguing about the parts that fill in between the big rocks. It's given us some level of uncertainty where to start the budgeting process.” On Thursday, Treat said the ongoing discussions about the education budget have taken a lot of the oxygen out of the room. Now, the pro tem did not offer a specific timetable, but he said if they don't come up with a solution sometime soon, they will need to abandon those discussions and move on to other things.
Dick Pryor: With the education piece still to be decided and taking up a lot of oxygen, it sounds like the rest of the budget will have to be settled very quickly. Will lawmakers have enough time to do that justice?
Shawn Ashley: Well, let's break that question down into two parts. First, will they have enough time to finish the budget? The answer, I think, is yes. We have seen them over the years be able to pull a rabbit out of their collective hats and move budget bills through the process in just a few days. So, they certainly have time to do that. Second, will they be able to do it justice? Some lawmakers, both Democrats and Republicans, will tell you no. Each time a budget agreement is announced and run through both chambers in just a matter of days, members of both parties point out that they did not have sufficient time to review it and determine what effect it would have on state agencies and members of the public.
Now, some of those complaints probably are not without validity. For example, lawmakers passed and Governor Stitt signed a bill earlier this year that appropriates $9 million to the State Regents for Higher Education to fund a program for members of the National Guard. Senate Appropriations Chair Roger Thompson told the Senate Joint Committee on Appropriations and Budget when it considered the bill that they did not have time to get an agreement on that funding during the 2022 budget talks. In other words, sometimes time is not on their side.
Dick Pryor: Shifting topics. What's the status of sports betting this year?
Shawn Ashley: House Bill 1027 will not advance after it was not heard in a Senate committee by April 13th. The Senate author, Senator Bill Coleman, a Republican from Ponca City, said the demise of the bill, in part, was due to the lack of coordination between the executive branch and tribal leadership. Now, I think we need to remember that the model gaming compact that gave us the casinos we have today was not simply something approved by voters or the legislature. It represented months of talks between the tribes, then-Governor Brad Henry and lawmakers at the time. And it seems that sort of engagement is needed again to add sports betting to the state's gaming portfolio, at least according to Senator Coleman.
Dick Pryor: All right. Thank you, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor. Listeners like you provide essential funding for KGOU’s news reports including Capitol Insider, available in podcasts, online, and on the air. Information on how to contribute is at kgou.org.
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(mrlaugh / Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0))TRANSCRIPT
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Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call reporter Tyler Talley, filling in for Shawn Ashley. On Thursday, Attorney General Gentner Drummond issued an opinion stating that the Office of Management and Enterprise Services – OMES - is required to oversee all state agency acquisitions, including verifying the legitimacy of agency claims that certain purchases may be exempt from the Central Purchasing Act. Tyler, this is a significant opinion. Why was it requested?
Tyler Talley: Yes, Drummond's opinion was in response to a request by House Appropriations and Budget Committee Vice-Chair Ryan Martinez and several OMES officials, including former executive director Steven Harp, had argued in the past year that the agency did not have the authority to verify whether a claimed exemption to the Central Purchasing Act was legitimate, an assertion Drummond also challenged in his opinion. This all comes hot off the heels of a recent report from the Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency, known as LOFT for short, which Drummond also cited in his opinion that found that OMES has essentially provided no accountability oversight on more than $3 billion in state expenditures from various agencies during fiscal year 2022, which ended June 30th.
In his opinion, Drummond urged state legislators to give serious consideration to recommendations made in the LOFT report. And there is currently one bill alive - House Bill 1774 - that would target the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department's exemption from the provisions of the Central Purchasing Act. That bill is on general order and awaiting consideration by the full Senate.
Dick Pryor: An attorney general's opinion also entered into the nomination of Dr. Katherine Curry to be Governor Stitt’s Secretary of Education instead of State Superintendent Ryan Walters. What was the rationale behind that opinion?
Tyler Talley: Attorney General Drummond sent a letter to Senate Pro Tem Greg Treat, which was dated March 7th, effectively saying he believes Superintendent Walters cannot simultaneously serve as secretary of education and state superintendent. Oklahoma prohibits state officers and deputies from simultaneously holding another state office or serving as the deputy of any other state office. There are exemptions, but Drummond said none of them applied to the secretary of education or state superintendent.
Dick Pryor: Bills and bill language often don't really die in the legislature. Case in point is a bill that did not advance in March when it failed to be considered by the deadline for bills to be heard on the floor of the House. Now that bill is back. Tell us about Senate Bill 1056.
Tyler Talley: Yes, that can be a wild ride, this process. The House Judiciary Criminal Committee brought forward Senate Bill 1056 on Wednesday, which in its original form related to obscene material and minors. However, Representative Kevin West, who is the bill's House author, brought forward new language that replaced or as the term in the capitol goes, “shucked” those original provisions with those like an earlier House bill he authored, which was House Bill 2186. That bill was advanced by the same committee but failed to be heard on the House floor.
The shucked version of Senate Bill 1056 now makes it unlawful for a person to engage in adult performance which contains obscene material or for any political subdivision to allow, permit, organize or authorize the viewing of an adult performance which contains obscene material on public property or in a public space where the adult performance could be viewed by a minor. Drag shows could potentially fall under this. West made alterations in this new language from the previous House version to perhaps make it more palatable for those with concerns with the goal of getting it to the full House.
Dick Pryor: Tyler, a bill that would give charter schools the right of first refusal to lease land made available by the Commissioners of the Land Office has advanced, but narrowly. A rare legislative process came into play in that vote.
Tyler Talley: Yes, there were concerns from both sides of the aisle in the House Common Education Committee on Senate Bill 519 over giving priority to charter schools over public schools for CLO land. The vote sat at a split - 5 to 5 - for a few minutes before House Speaker Pro Tempore Kyle Hilbert was called in to cast the deciding vote, leaving it at a 6 to 5 vote. Given that narrow vote, it's clear lawmakers will have to continue to work on that legislation.
Dick Pryor: What will legislators be working on in the week ahead?
Tyler Talley: As of this week, there are about 500 House and Senate bills still alive. Thursday was the deadline for most bills to be heard in committee of the opposite chamber. And we still have some key appropriations and education bills on the horizon.
Dick Pryor: Tyler Talley, thank you. And that's Capitol Insider. For more information, go to quorumcall.online. You can find audio and transcripts at kgou.org and listen to Capitol Insider where you get your podcasts. Until next time I'm Dick Pryor.
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(Jacob McCleland / KGOU)TRANSCRIPT
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Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. The last week was fairly quiet in the legislature as both houses focused primarily on committee work. Shawn, on Thursday, State Superintendent Ryan Walters urged the legislature to adopt the State Board of Education's proposed rules - that he wrote - that prohibit inappropriate sexual material in schools. The board approved those rules on March 23rd and sent them to the governor and the House and Senate. What does the legislature have to do with administrative rules and these in particular?
Shawn Ashley: Well, like we've talked about previously, administrative rules are the way state agencies implement the laws that the legislature passes, and all administrative rules are subject to review by the legislature and by the governor. The legislature will recommend in a joint resolution that certain rules be approved and that others be disapproved. And the governor either signs or vetoes those resolutions. The legislature can override his veto if they want to see a particular action taken on a specific rule.
Now, lawmakers have yet to consider the state Board of Education rules that prohibit inappropriate sexual material in schools. When they do, it's likely to be interesting. That's because Attorney General Gentner Drummond found in an attorney general's opinion that the state Board of Education and all state governing boards need specific authorization for their rules, not just the general authority to make rules. And the legislature has not passed a law related to inappropriate sexual material in schools. Drummond said rules approved without specific authorization would be null and void. So, it's going to be interesting to see how the legislature handles those rules.
Dick Pryor: Education policy and funding is the top issue in this legislative session, with the House and Senate remaining at odds over competing plans. How involved has State Superintendent Walters been in working with the legislature this session?
Shawn Ashley: Not very, according to some. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, Senate Education Chair Adam Pugh and Senator David Bullard, who authored the merit pay portion of the Senate's education plan, said recently that they didn't have any conversations with Walters about the plan. Asked if they even knew who the State Department of Education's legislative liaison was, they said they didn't. Now, Walters did meet with House Speaker Charles McCall on Wednesday, but we don't know exactly what they discussed. Walters also emailed lawmakers what he said were examples of pornography that had been found in Oklahoma public schools. But most of the schools denied that the books had been in their libraries, or if they had that, they had been removed. Walters was invited to attend a hearing before the House Appropriations and Budget Subcommittee on Education to address issues like that. But he turned down that opportunity, telling the subcommittee chair that he would be meeting with parents who attended a school choice rally that day.
Dick Pryor: The Senate has not taken any visible steps to confirm Walters as Governor Stitt’s secretary of education, and here it is,April. Should we read anything into that?
Shawn Ashley: Not necessarily. Since 2022 was an election year, the governor's cabinet resets, if you will, and the legislature has yet to take up any of Stitt’s cabinet secretary nominations since he began his second term.
Dick Pryor: There are several bills still alive that would reduce the governor's appointment authority. On Thursday, a bill that would have reduced the number of appointments the governor makes to the Oklahoma Horse Racing Commission failed in committee. Does that action signal anything about the potential fate of those other bills?
Shawn Ashley: Senate Majority Floor Leader Greg McCortney did not seem to think so Thursday. He's the author of House Bill 1403, which failed. McCortney says he was surprised how such a simple bill was generating so much controversy. Clearly, McCortney said, “there's a lot more going on, and whatever is going on I don't think applies to this bill.” A House bill that would modify appointments to the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority is awaiting consideration in a Senate committee and a Senate bill that recreates the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department's oversight commission is awaiting consideration on the House floor.
Dick Pryor: And very quickly, what do legislators have to work on in the deadline week ahead?
Shawn Ashley: There are more than 400 bills that could be taken up in committees in the week ahead. Those bills have to pass those committees before they can be heard on the floor of the opposite chamber. Like we've talked about before, there's still something for everyone out there, it seems.
Dick Pryor: Thank you, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. For more information, go to quorumcall.online. You can find audio and transcripts at kgou.org and listen to Capitol Insider where you get your podcasts. Until next time with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
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(Cool Kats Photography / Flickr)Both houses of the Oklahoma legislature want school choice bills to become law, but the two sides have dug in over disagreements about how to craft the legislation.
TRANSCRIPT
Capitol Insider sponsored by the Oklahoma State Medical Association. Keeping Oklahoma physicians informed about advances in medical technologies, treatments and after care. More on the vision and mission of OSMA at okmed.org.
Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. Shawn, we've been talking about it for several weeks. We've interviewed the speaker of the house and senate president pro tem about it. But the impasse continues over legislation regarding education funding and school choice tax credits for parents. Where does this issue stand now at the Capitol?
Shawn Ashley: On Thursday, the Senate passed its version of the private school and home school tax credits and a $530 million appropriation for common education. Now, the Senate bills are different than what the House passed. The amount of the private school credit is higher and the home school tax credit is smaller and there is an income cap on families that would qualify for them. The appropriations are different, too. The Senate plan includes money for larger pay raises and a $30 million merit pay proposal. And since the money to school districts through the school funding formula rather than outside it like the House plan does, House Speaker Charles McCall urged the Senate on Tuesday to vote up or down on the original House plan. He told reporters if they send it back amended, the bills are dead. But that's exactly what the Senate did.
Dick Pryor: So, what happens next on these bills?
Shawn Ashley: Procedurally, they go back to the House, which could accept the amendments and put the bills up for a final vote. If approved, they would go to Governor Kevin Stitt for his consideration. But that does seem unlikely. The other option would be to reject the amendments, send the bills to a conference committee, and try to work out a deal with the Senate and possibly Governor Stitt there.
Dick Pryor: Shawn, this dispute is taking on the look of a conflict between urban and rural interests. So, is a compromise possible?
Shawn Ashley: Listeners may remember that McCall told us in our interview that the original House plan was what was necessary to get enough votes to pass from his caucus's rural, suburban and urban members and Treat said Thursday on the Senate floor that the income cap on the tax credits was needed in part to be able to garner the votes necessary to pass the bill. That seems to indicate that the bills were carefully balanced within the House and Senate Republican caucuses. But whether that balance can be extended across the rotunda seems tenuous, at least according to their leaders.
Dick Pryor: Since the mass killings at the Covenant School in Nashville, there's been increased focus on what state legislatures across the country are doing regarding school safety. Where does the Oklahoma legislature stand now on bills purporting to protect children and students?
Shawn Ashley: The Senate passed at least three bills addressing that issue. Senate Bill 100 builds on Governor Stitt's executive order last year that requires school districts to have a risk assessment of their school sites, conducted by the Oklahoma School Security Institute, which is a division of the Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management and Homeland Security. Senate Bill 101 creates a $20 million grant program for public and private schools, career tech centers and higher education institutions to improve campus security. The Senate also passed Senate Bill 169, which requires local law enforcement officers and emergency medical service providers to be physically present and directly involved in a minimum of one security drill annually at schools in their coverage area. Now, the House took another approach: the “good guy with a gun” approach. It passed House Bill 2139, which permits local school boards to authorize school personnel, such as teachers, who have a concealed carry permit to carry handguns on school property.
Dick Pryor: There are a lot of gun bills still alive this session. Overall, what are those bills attempting to do?
Shawn Ashley: In simplest terms, expand and protect gun rights. A couple permit firearms to be carried on boats, which currently is not permitted. Another lowers the legal age for purchasing a firearm from 21 to 18. And there are several bills that address the business of firearms. One prohibits companies such as banks and financial institutions that do business with the state from discriminating against firearm businesses. And one bill would create a special license plate for OK2A, the Oklahoma Second Amendment Association.
Dick Pryor: Thank you, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
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Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat (R) Oklahoma City(Legislative Service Bureau / State Senate)Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat weighs in on stalled education bills and response to Volkswagen bypassing Oklahoma for a manufacturing plant.
TRANSCRIPT
Capitol Insider sponsored by the Oklahoma State Medical Association, physician members who devote more than 11 years of higher education and 10,000 clinical hours in study to provide care for all Oklahomans. More at OKMED.org.
Shawn Ashley: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. Dick Pryor is under the weather. My guest today is Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, a Republican from Oklahoma City. This interview was conducted on Tuesday, March 21st. Senator Treat, it's good to have you with us.
Sen. Greg Treat: Thank you for having me.
Shawn Ashley: The House has passed an education package that includes school choice tax credits for parents who put their children in private or home schools. House Speaker Charles McCall said he won't hear any of the Senate's education proposals if the House plan is amended. Can the House plan pass the Senate without amendments?
Sen. Greg Treat: I thank you for that. I'm going to answer your question here in a second. But first off, that's not the way the process works. It's a bicameral legislative process in Oklahoma. We're not Nebraska. Each chamber gets an equal say. There's a reason there's a Senate author and a House author on every bill. We're co-equal partners in this arrangement, and we will not be told that we cannot amend one way or another. The House plan, as it came over, would not pass the Senate absent modifications.
Shawn Ashley: You mentioned on March 9th that there were not 25 votes to pass the package as it is. What are senators’ concerns? Where are the disagreements over this proposal?
Sen. Greg Treat: There's a reason the phrase the “devil's in the details” exists. When you have kids in certain school districts that will get an additional $50 through the formula and kids in other districts get $745 through the formula, we're just trying to fact find and figure out how does this impact? Is it fair? Is it equitable? I'm obviously a school choice proponent, very much favor putting choice into the equation and empowering parents, but it's not at any cost. We've got to make sure 90% plus of the kids are going to continue to be educated in the public school system. We need to make sure it's robust and strong throughout the state, not just in specific areas.
Shawn Ashley: The Senate announced a comprehensive education plan before the start of the session. Senate Education Chair Adam Pugh was leading that effort, and many of those bills have passed out of the Senate. What are the most important education proposals in the Senate package?
Sen. Greg Treat: Yeah, thank you. I think that the teacher pay raise, as Senator Pugh has envisioned it, is very well thought out. It's a $3,000 raise for those five years and under, $4,000 raise between five and ten, $5,000 for ten and above, and it's just a really well thought out plan that was… You know, he went out to meet with superintendents, with school board members, with parents, with teachers throughout the state, and put in a lot of thought into his plan. So, I would say the Pugh plan, as far as education goes, maternity leave for teachers is extremely important. School safety measure by Duane Pemberton is something that we really…I put together a task force over the summer to look at school safety, a bipartisan group, and this is some of their recommendations. School board reform, getting more people engaged at school board elections. And there's a myriad of others, along with looking at the formula that currently seeks to equally distribute money throughout the state.
Former state Senator Gary Stanislawski had some recommendations we really haven't acted on in the last few years, and then LOFT (Legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency) came back and doubled down on some of those recommendations during this interim. So, we're not just looking at one or two bills, we're looking at the whole plethora of bills that we're advancing. We advanced many of those on Monday. We advanced Senator Pugh's education payment plan or teacher pay raise today (Tuesday). And we're going to continue - we're not going to be bullied into not running Senate education priorities.
Shawn Ashley: Let's shift gears for a moment. After Volkswagen selected a site in Canada instead of one in Oklahoma for its electric vehicle battery manufacturing plant, you announced a plan to form a select committee to study the current economic landscape in Oklahoma in an attempt to attract more employers and major investments. Where are you in the process of selecting members for that committee, and when do you think it will get to work?
Sen. Greg Treat: I think it'll get to work next week, depending on when we get a chance to communicate to all of those. We've had breaking news out of the Oklahoma Supreme Court today (Tuesday) that kind of has delayed some of my ability to get around and talk to people. But I'm very serious about getting it, meeting and having those open and bipartisan. The members of the committee will be members of the Senate. The way the select committee process works in our Senate rules they need to be members of the Senate. That doesn't preclude me from having a parallel track with an advisory committee that may advise. I'm exploring that option right now.
I've had more interest in this than anything I've ever put out as a senator or the Senate President Pro Tem. I've had interest from all corners of the state, and I've had interest from all sectors of the state, from education to manufacturers, higher legal minds. There are a lot of people with a lot of ideas on why we haven't captured these last two opportunities. We're not going to get everything we go for, right. When you're going out to try to land new projects. You're going to fail more than you succeed, but if you don't learn in those failures, you won't get better. And what I'm modeling this after is - it's a bold thing to say – but I’m modeling it after Mayor Ron Norick. After United Airlines chose Indianapolis over Oklahoma City, they took a real reflective look at what Oklahoma City was lacking and we found out that there were some areas we could improve. And there's been a renaissance in Oklahoma City since they made those recommendations. And I hope this is transformative in that way, too. I want to applaud our successes, but I don't want to ignore where we failed.
Shawn Ashley: Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat, thanks for being our guest on Capitol Insider.
Sen. Greg Treat: Thank you so much.
Shawn Ashley: For more information, go to quorumcall.online. You can find audio and transcripts at KGOU.org. Until next time, I'm Shawn Ashley.
Announcer: This is Chip Brantley, co-host of the NPR podcast White Lies. Before we found the man in Vancouver, before we sued the State Department, before we snuck into the graveyard of a federal penitentiary, all we had were the photographs - photographs of a group of Cuban men standing on the roof of a prison in rural Alabama. That's this season on the NPR podcast White Lies.
A bill that would prohibit corporal punishment of students with disabilities failed in the Oklahoma House, but the author plans to bring it to the floor again on Monday.
TRANSCRIPT
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Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. Lawmakers took a couple of extra days off for spring break. The house resumes Monday morning. The Senate returns Monday afternoon. Shawn, a notable bill is expected to come up in the House. It failed on Tuesday but illustrates a legislative rule that allows bills that fell short of the votes needed for passage to come up for consideration again. That bill concerns corporal punishment.
Shawn Ashley: Representative John Talley served what is called a notice of reconsideration for House Bill 1028, which prohibits the use of corporal punishment for public school students with disabilities. Now, there were more votes for the bill Tuesday than there were against it. But a bill must receive 51 votes to pass, so it failed 45 to 43. Since it was spring break week, a number of members were absent. Now, about that notice to reconsider. A House member has three legislative days, including the day they served the notice to ask that the bill be put up for another vote. So that first day was Tuesday and the House met briefly on Wednesday but took up no bills. So that was the second day. That means Representative Talley will have to exercise his notice on Monday and he must get at least half the votes who were absent or convince some of those who voted against the bill Tuesday to change their votes in order for it to pass.
Dick Pryor: Oklahoma lost out to St. Thomas, Ontario, Canada for a Volkswagen electric vehicle battery plant. The state was providing an incentive of almost $700 million to lure Volkswagen to the Mid-America Industrial Park in Pryor. What happens to the incentive money now?
Shawn Ashley: The legislature amended the LEAD Act earlier this year, reducing the number of employees a firm had to hire over five years in order to qualify for the incentive as a way to further attract Volkswagen to come to Oklahoma. In that bill was a provision that says if the state does not sign a contract with the company to participate in the incentive program by April 15th, the money will be transferred to the General Revenue Fund. From there, lawmakers will be able to appropriate it however they wish. Keep in mind, lawmakers and the governor already have more than $1 billion carried over from previous fiscal years, and the current year’s collections are expected to exceed the estimate by more than $1 billion. Some of which will go into the Rainy Day Fund. That means they will have close to $3 billion in cash to spend, which legislative leaders and the governor have said they would like to see dedicated to one-time expenditures rather than recurring costs they would have to fund in future fiscal years when those funds might not be available.
Dick Pryor: Governor Stitt and eighteen other governors have issued a statement supporting a federal bill to prevent pension fund managers from basing investment decisions, at least in part, on environmental, social and governance policies referred to as ESG. There is political hyperbole in the statement, but the governors want investment firms to focus on financial returns rather than social policies. Several bills addressing ESG are alive in the legislature now, and one became law last year. What's behind the state government interest in ESG?
Shawn Ashley: Well, I guess you could say that in Oklahoma's case, they have nearly 40 billion reasons to be concerned. That's roughly the combined balance of the state's pension funds, which are largely invested in stocks and bonds. Ultimately, the bills tell companies how they're going to operate if they're going to do business with the state of Oklahoma with our pension funds. Under the legislation passed in 2022 and signed into law, for example, investment firms and banks cannot have policies that oppose the fossil fuel energy industry. The handful of bills this year are more broad and say firms must focus exclusively on the bottom line - those investment returns - and not try to use those investments which are taxpayer funds to pursue social policies.
Dick Pryor: What's ahead for lawmakers over the next few days?
Shawn Ashley: Thursday is a big deadline. It's the deadline for bills to be heard on the floor of their chamber of origin. That means House bills need to be heard in the House and Senate bills need to be heard in the Senate if they're going to continue to work their way through the legislative process. There are more than 200 bills available for consideration in each chamber. Some of those are controversial, so it looks like it will be a busy week.
Dick Pryor: Thank you, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. For more information, go to QUORUMCALL.online. You can find audio and transcripts at KGOU.org and listen to Capitol Insider where you get your podcasts. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
Announcer: This is Chip Brantley, co-host of the NPR podcast White Lies. Before we found the man in Vancouver, before we sued the State Department, before we snuck into the graveyard of a federal penitentiary, all we had were the photographs, photographs of a group of Cuban men standing on the roof of a prison in rural Alabama. That's this season on the NPR podcast White Lies.
State Representative Mauree Turner (D) Oklahoma City(LSB PHOTO)TRANSCRIPT
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Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you Inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. Shawn, the Oklahoma House of Representatives made national news over the last few days by censuring and removing from committee assignments Oklahoma City Democratic State Representative Mauree Turner. Turner was in their office with a person the Highway Patrol was seeking for allegedly striking a trooper following an altercation between another person and a lawmaker. In taking its action against Turner, House leadership claimed Turner was harboring a fugitive and impeding law enforcement. Facts are in dispute over the incident, and the House Democratic Caucus challenged the leadership's narrative. Does recent legislative history give any indication where this might go next?
Shawn Ashley: Not really. The House was prepared to consider expelling a member at the start of the 2017 legislative session, but that member resigned before the House could take any action. In that case, House Speaker Charles McCall had suspended the representative from his committee chairmanship prior to his resignation and removed him from their committee assignments when they submitted their resignation. According to the motion approved Tuesday by the House, Turner's removal from their committees is conditional. If they apologize for their actions, they can be reinstated. Turner, however, has said they will not apologize.
Dick Pryor: In our recent interview with Speaker of the House Charles McCall, he discussed the House bills that would provide tax credits for parents who placed their children in private and home school environments. Those bills are being reviewed in the Senate, but McCall and Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat are at odds over them. What's going on?
Shawn Ashley: Well, they're really arguing over the legislative process, it seems. Speaker McCall effectively gave Treat an ultimatum Thursday. Pass the bills as they are without any amendments, and he said if the bills are amended those bills would be dead and the House would not take up any of the Senate's education proposals. Treat told reporters, “That's not the way this process works. We all know that. He knows that.” Treat said Senate Republicans are reviewing the bills, and he said something I found rather interesting. “My job,” he said, “is pretty simple. Get 25 votes and try to figure that out. And the path that they sent us does not get us to 25 votes.” In other words, it sounds like the Senate may need to amend those bills in order for them to pass that chamber.
Dick Pryor: A couple of bills have passed off the floors that would change election procedures in Oklahoma. One would impose additional requirements on notaries who certify absentee ballots; the other would change the information required to verify the validity of signatures on initiative petitions. Why do the authors say these changes are needed, and what's the response by those in opposition?
Shawn Ashley: Representative Max Wolfley said he filed House Bill 2024, which requires notaries to maintain a log of all absentee ballots they notarize for a period of at least two years after the date of the election, to provide additional transparency and ensure notaries are following the current law that requires them to keep a log. Senator Julie Daniels, the author of Senate Bill 518 that makes changes to the initiative petition process, said she was focused on improving the integrity of the initiative petition process and improving voter's trust in it. House Democratic leader Cyndi Munson and Representative Forrest Bennett expressed concern that Wolfley’s record-keeping requirement would discourage notaries from verifying absentee ballots, and they noted it is already difficult to find someone to notarize an absentee ballot and this could create another barrier for those who vote absentee. During the Senate's consideration of Daniel's bill, Senator Julia Kirt noted nearly 30% of the signatures on the state Question 820 initiative petition were disqualified using the current process. And she said she was concerned more signatures might be disqualified if you increase the number of data points used to verify signatures.
Dick Pryor: What's ahead for lawmakers over the next few days?
Shawn Ashley: The House and Senate are planning to meet only Monday and Tuesday and take Wednesday and Thursday off so families with children can spend time with them during spring break. Now, March 2nd was the deadline for bills and joint resolutions to be heard in a committee of their chamber of origin and more than 2,000 bills did not advance. They have more than 300 to consider in each chamber before the March 23rd deadline for bills to be heard in their chamber of origin.
Dick Pryor: Thank you, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. For more information, go to quorumcall.online. You can find audio and transcripts at kgou.org. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
Announcer: This is Chip Brantley, co-host of the NPR podcast White Lies. Before we found the man in Vancouver, before we sued the State Department, before we snuck into the graveyard of a federal penitentiary, all we had were the photographs, photographs of a group of Cuban men standing on the roof of a prison in rural Alabama. That's this season on the NPR podcast White Lies.
The Oklahoma House of Representatives has sent to the Senate two bills that would provide education tax credits for parents with students in private and home schools.
TRANSCRIPT
Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you Inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley, and our guest is the speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives, Charles McCall, Republican from Atoka. Welcome, Mr. Speaker.
Charles McCall: Well, thank you, Mr. Pryor. Great to be with you today.
Shawn Ashley: Speaker McCall, you are the author of House Bill 1935, which creates the Oklahoma Parental Choice Tax Credit Act. This would provide an annual tax credit of $5,000 per student for private school expenses and $2,500 per student for homeschool expenses. Now, you and your caucus have opposed proposals for educational savings accounts or vouchers. How did you arrive at the idea for income tax credits instead?
Charles McCall: Thank you for the question. And yes, not just myself, but many in my Republican caucus do oppose the ESA (education savings accounts) and the voucher approach because it takes money away from public education funding. Those mechanisms draw money out directly of the education appropriation that the legislature sets aside for common education in the state. And our Constitution calls for the legislature to provide for an education of students and children in our state. The, uh, so that's always been problematic with an ESA or voucher for House Republicans. And we've been very open and honest about that and no bill with that mechanism in it will pass, will garner support for the House.
The other thing that we ultimately arrived at, the tax credit approach, also one of the criticisms of ESAs and vouchers, is there is no accountability around those. You know, it's basically a voucher or an account loaded up with money from the state. And you can go, you know, spend that on education as you see fit. You know, we ran into, you know, an issue with some moneys that the governor appropriated, some CARES moneys to a GEER fund where they loaded that into a digital wallet. And then when there was an audit on the back end, you found out that parents were able to buy gaming consoles and cell phones and things that really aren't academic related with those funds.
The tax credit approach requires every person that wants to claim the credit, they have to prove up those qualified expenses before they can truly receive the credit. So, the tax credit is not the state passing out checks or money to people just because they might ask for it. There is accountability and oversight on those. They'll have to prove up those expenses, submit those to the tax commission for review before the tax credit is granted or recognized.
Dick Pryor: Opponents to this measure have argued the credits will be claimed by parents who are already sending their children to private schools. We've heard that. Do you think your bill will lead to more students going to private schools or being schooled at home?
Charles McCall: Well, I think…I do believe that it is every parent's right to choose the education path for their child. I got to choose that for my children. I chose to send mine to public school. I'm happy with that decision. I think they received a strong education. Both of my children are in college or post-college. They were able to perform well at the college level with their public education. But we understand that there are there are kids that can, you know, that can potentially thrive more and in an environment that, you know, better suits them. I mean, every kid's unique. And parents understand, you know, this child better than anybody else.
Of course, I think they're going to be people who take advantage of the tax credit that are already paying tuition for private school or home schooling or education by other means as our Constitution refers to it and is the appropriate term. But once again, they have to prove those things up. I mean, they have to be qualified educational expenses. We could argue that, you know, somebody who is currently sending their child to private school and does not get the tax credit, they're really facing double taxation because they are paying money to the state that is appropriated to an education, to a public education school somewhere that they're not getting any utilization out of. And so, at the end of the day, I think we have to realize taxpayers are taxpayers and we have to ultimately respect and affirm the decision of the parent where they feel like the child is best suited to learn.
Ultimately, when a child finishes its common education in the state, we need them ready to be a productive workforce member, ready to make a contribution. We want businesses and industry that are looking at Oklahoma that currently are not here to say we've got, you know, Oklahoma produces bright students, and they recognize multiple education paths. So, these are, you know, I think this is in the vein of making sure that every student in the state wins, every school district in the state wins, every teacher in the state wins, every parent in the state wins.
So, I think it's a very smart and thoughtful approach by the legislature, even though we're talking about just the tax credit segment of the bill, I mean the bill provides a historic level of funding for public education as well. It also requires that the legislature continue to fund public education at the historical level going forward or that tax credit gets suspended. So, I mean, there's a lot of provisions and protections in this bill to ensure that all forms of education in Oklahoma are supported going forward.
Shawn Ashley: The expected impact on state revenue collections from this tax credit is around $300 million. That's money the state will not have to fund state government, including education. Can the state afford to do that on an annual basis?
Charles McCall: Shawn, I think so. And once again, I could also make the argument that we're going to we're going to do something with that 300 million this year. We could have cut taxes and lowered the amount of revenue that potentially comes in. And of course, I'm a proponent of when you do lower taxes, you basically just leave more money in people's pocket to spend. And you can look at the savings rates of people in our state. They're pretty low. So, you know they're going to spend it and it's going to bounce around with that multiplier effect and just spur our economy on to become larger and more diverse.
But yes, I think we can afford it. But there's once again, there's provisions in the bill that if we cannot or if there is an economic downturn in the future - and the economy will cycle - the legislature will have to find a way to maintain a high level of funding for public education in order for these tax credits to not be suspended. And those things happen automatically in this piece of legislation. The legislature doesn't have to come in and take a vote to suspend the tax credit if our revenues fall short of hitting this new funding level of, you know, $3.7 billion for public education. And I might add that $3.7 billion in public education funding is a 52% increase in the overall amount of money that we are investing in education over the last six years.
And the legislature's commitment is to - we want to continue to fund and invest in education. We think - we believe - that education is the means by which everybody in the state has socio-economic upward mobility. And through education we can put our children in, and help them put themselves in, a position to really enjoy a higher level of prosperity. And so, it's once again, there's always the questions about how much, you know? Will it cost us money? Yeah. I mean, everything we do up here has a fiscal impact. But it's definitely one that, you know, when we have banked nearly $4 billion in savings right now in reserves we can, and everything is still performing above estimate, sure, this is the time to move a piece of legislation like this.
Dick Pryor: Speaker McCall, you've mentioned the safeguards that could be triggered for suspending the tax credits in the event of a state revenue failure or if the legislature reduces money for common ed. But what if neither of those conditions occur and common education needs a higher appropriation and lawmakers don't have the necessary funds at some future time?
Charles McCall: Well, I think if revenue continues to grow, the legislature and certainly the House of Representatives is inclined. I've been here for six legislatures now - this is my last term - and every legislature that I have served in the House, regardless of the leadership that was leading the institution, education, public education and education as a whole, have always been the top priority for the body. And I think the Senate as well. I think you have to realize that if revenues don't grow at the same rate that they have in recent years or if there's a downturn, I think the reality is the legislature will use its reserves first to stabilize education. Because that's the priority. I think education is the last group that gets that gets cut if revenues fall. But hopefully, you know, these investments are important long term. There is a long-term strategy here as well as a short-term one to make Oklahoma, to better our educational outcomes and produce a student that has lots of options when they come out of school in terms of employment.
Shawn Ashley: Earlier, you mentioned the companion bill, House Bill 2775, which appropriates $500 million to common education, including a $2,500 across the board teacher pay raise.
Charles McCall: Yes.
Shawn Ashley: Is that all the additional money common education can expect to receive during this legislative session?
Charles McCall: Well, I think there's other discussions we can have. Those are the provisions of this particular piece of legislation. I do believe the legislation does not need to be modified in the Senate and sent back to the House. We will continue to have conversations with the Senate. They have some good ideas that we're open to as well. And we will, you know, we will entertain some trailer legislation to this bill where we can find agreement.
Senator Pugh had some good ideas when he held his press conference for his committee in terms of things that he wanted to see addressed in the state. He's a very sharp individual and very thoughtful as well. We've got several weeks left to session. I think we'll continue to have those discussions about. And there's a high probability that there's some additional things done in education in addition to this $500 million. On the teacher pay raise component, I think it's also worth mentioning in the House plan, the $2,500 is the minimum. The school districts can use the money to pay over that if they'd like to, and we hope that they will, for teacher pay raises. But there have been several school districts over the interim that have asked for flexibility to make support staff pay adjustments, and they need that money.
So, the teacher pay raise at $2,500 is just a minimum with our plan, but it gives the local school districts the flexibility to apply the rest of the money wherever it may need to go for academic purposes within that school district. And that was the reasoning on why the House chose $2,500. We set that as a minimum. It could certainly be higher, but if a particular school district needs the money for support staff, curriculum, STEM labs, more desk space for the open transfer that went into effect about a year ago, and we've seen roughly 36,000 students in the state utilize open transfer to move from one public school district to another where those schools have additional capacity to accept those students, all of those things were contemplated and thought through in this bill and in the bill's language.
Dick Pryor: You have frequently expressed concern for rural schools and you've said that your caucus prefers policies that benefit all parts of the state, urban and rural. Taken together, how do these two bills affect education in rural areas? How do they help rural public schools?
Charles McCall: That's a great question, Mr. Pryor, and I appreciate you asking it because I like the opportunity to explain how you find support and how you work through policy in the legislature. Our caucus, the majority caucus, we have 81 members, huge caucus. And those members, we have a lot of rural members in the Republican caucus, and we have a significant number of suburban and some urban Republicans.
And so, when you talk through a policy, you've got to think about how that policy affects those three areas geographically, especially with education policy. And in the House, we've always said, you know, good policy should work everywhere in the state. So, what we contemplated, I mean, the reality with this tax credit is it's going to be utilized more heavily in the urban, suburban areas of the state. It really doesn't have, you know, a tremendous amount of utilization currently in the rural parts of the state. But you have to be considerate of those rural members and our rural citizens. And so, what can you do in a piece of legislation that helps support the education choices in rural Oklahoma?
For rural Oklahoma, the predominant education choices are your public schools and your choice is to be able to move from public school to public school if it's not a good fit for your child. So, this bill contemplates, you know, the funding side for public education that was, you know, contemplated that we would need to find a way to push to marginally push out some additional dollars to rural public schools in the state, while also supporting every public school in the state of Oklahoma. And finding a compromise within our caucus there - that's why you saw a vote the other day for 75 votes in the House, all Republican votes, for the tax credit and 78 for the the public education funding piece, is because we found, you know, we worked together to find a compromise where every kid and every school district in the state, regardless of rural, urban or suburban, you know, would enjoy some type of educational win that win out of this education policy.
Shawn Ashley: You mentioned the bill has passed the House. It's now in the hands of the Senate. What do you think they're going to do with it?
Charles McCall: Well. (laughs) I don't think they're looking at House bills for another couple of weeks. We're certainly not looking at Senate bills for a couple more weeks until we complete the House of origin process. We are, you know, I'm talking to the Senate leader. I spoke with the Senate leader before we even dropped the language and moved it. I've spoken with the governor of the state.
You know, once again, I think there's a lot to like about the bill from a senator’s point of view. The House is certainly open to the Senate’s additions to what they think needs to be focused on in terms of public education or education as a whole. And I think the bill will move forward, and I think there'll be some additional education measures that pass and ultimately become part of the budget and become a part of state law or policy. So, you know, the Senate's got to do their thing and you know, they'll process it in their due time.
Dick Pryor: Speaker of the House Charles McCall, as always, thank you for being our guest on Capitol Insider.
Charles McCall: My pleasure, Mr. Pryor. Pleasure to be with you.
Dick Pryor: We hope to talk to you again later in the session.
Charles McCall: Yes, I'd love that. Thank you.
Dick Pryor: Thank you. If you have questions, e-mail them to news@kgou.org or contact us on Twitter @kgounews and @QuorumCallShawn. And for an extended version of this interview, go to kgou.org, where you can find the audio and also the transcript. That's Capitol Insider. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
Gentner Drummond(Sue Ogrocki / AP)TRANSCRIPT
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Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. Shawn, Attorney General Gentner Drummond has withdrawn an attorney general's opinion issued by his predecessor, John O'Connor, late last year, allowing public funding for religious charter schools. Drummond found the opinion to be flawed in a couple of ways. What was his rationale for withdrawing the opinion?
Shawn Ashley: Attorney General Drummond said the opinion was not properly requested. The executive director of the statewide Virtual Charter School Board did not have the board's authorization to request the opinion. Second, Drummond took issue with cases cited in the request that led to O'Connor's conclusion. The cases, Drummond noted, involve private schools, not state sponsored charter schools. He said those cases have little precedential value as it relates to charter schools. And finally, Drummond took issue with O'Connor's legal analysis and said the former attorney general's opinion incorrectly concluded that Oklahoma taxpayer dollars could be tapped to fund religious charter schools.
Dick Pryor: In his letter withdrawing the opinion, Drummond warned that using the First Amendment to justify state funded religion is a misuse of religious liberty. Drummond’s action, it seems, shows that he may very well have a more nuanced view of the extent of religious liberty that could have broader implications.
Shawn Ashley: I think so. Drummond pointed out there is no binding precedent at this time that makes his office comfortable in advising the statewide virtual Charter School board that it's okay to violate the Oklahoma Constitution prohibition on sectarian control of public schools. And that's exactly the issue the board is grappling with as it considers an application from the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Oklahoma City to launch an online charter school.
Dick Pryor: Two bills have advanced that would make events, including parades, on public property involving people dressed in drag, a felony punishable by a fine and prison term. There's a lot to unpack here, but we have a long legal history in the United States of allowing parades and events on public property, regardless of their content. What are these bills trying to do?
Shawn Ashley: Well, both Representative Kevin West and Senator David Bullard said the proposals were a reaction to recent events in Oklahoma and in other parts of the country. Representative Kevin West said he had been contacted by representatives of Oklahoma communities who had found it impossible to take actions against certain performances that they deemed lewd and harmful to minors because Oklahoma law did not specifically address them. This, he said, gives cities something solid to stand on for public displays. Bullard said much the same thing, and he told the Senate Committee on General Government, ”It is something we need to make sure we handle and get control of.”
Dick Pryor: Only about seven weeks into his term as state superintendent, Ryan Walters is coming under fire from some of his fellow Republicans. What are they upset about?
Shawn Ashley: Walters is asking the State Board of Education to consider two administrative rules that could lead to schools seeing their accreditation downgraded or even revoked. House Appropriations and Budget Subcommittee on Education Chair Mark McBride won approval of a bill from the House Common Education Committee that would prohibit the board from enacting rules that affect schools’ accreditation without legislative authorization.” I think there need to be some barriers and roadblocks put up whatever we can do,” McBride said. He added, “I want to put this gentleman in a box.” McBride's bill is now eligible to be heard by the full House.
Dick Pryor: What is the pace of legislative work as we're getting ready to head into March.
Shawn Ashley: Thursday is the deadline for bills to be heard in a committee of their chamber of origin. House bills and joint resolutions in a House committee and Senate bills. and joint resolutions in a Senate committee. It will be a fast-paced week as members work to move their proposals on to the next step of the legislative process.
Dick Pryor: Absolutely. Fast paced. Thanks Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. If you have questions, e-mail them to news@kgou.org or contact us on Twitter @kgounews and @QuorumCallShawn. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
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(Cool Kats Photography / Flickr)TRANSCRIPT
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Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. Shawn, members of both major parties have filed bills relating to education for this legislative session. Now, the House Republican caucus has put forth their own plan and place the weight of a supermajority behind it. What are they proposing?
Shawn Ashley: The House Republican plan, which was unveiled Thursday and passed the House Appropriations and Budget Committee later that day, has two parts. House Bill 2775 is a $500 million appropriation to common education, and it includes 150 million for the financial support of schools, including a $2,500 salary increase for classroom teachers, $50 million to be distributed in a proportional manner, as are Redbud School grants for school districts that receive below average funding from annual tax revenue, and $300 million to be distributed to public school districts on a per pupil basis to be utilized for specified educational services. The second part, House Bill 1935, is a $5,000 tax credit for parents or guardians of children in private schools and a $2,500 tax credit for parents or guardians of children who are home-schooled. Now, to receive those credits, the parents or guardians will have to prove the cost for the amount of the credit that they are claiming.
Dick Pryor: How does this plan align with the governor's State of the State speech call for more school choice and vouchers?
Shawn Ashley: Well, it's similar, but different. Stitt’s State of the State speech and executive budget proposed a $130 million education savings account, or voucher program, which was reminiscent of the bill that failed the Senate during the 2022 regular session. House Speaker Charles McCall called his caucus's tax credit proposal a measured, logical, comprehensive approach to supporting parental choice that will work in all parts of the state. While presenting the plan Thursday to the House Appropriations and Budget Committee, House Common Education Committee Chair Rhonda Baker said, “Let me make this clear. We pushed back against ESAs and voucher considerations just simply because we feel like there's the expanded potential for fraud and abuse.”
Dick Pryor: Governor Stitt has called on lawmakers to ban gender affirming care and surgeries for minors. Two bills about that are already moving forward, Shawn - one in the House, one in the Senate. There are differences, though, between the two bills.
Shawn Ashley: Senate Bill 613 passed the Senate on Wednesday. It prohibits health care professionals from performing gender transition surgeries or hormone-based therapies for the purpose of gender transition on anyone under 18 years of age. That same day, the House Public Health Committee advanced House Bill 2177. It includes the same ban on surgeries and hormone therapies for minors, but it also imposes a total ban on gender transition services for facilities receiving public funds and prohibits insurance companies from covering gender reassignment treatments.
Dick Pryor: These bills may be a good example of how disagreements are bubbling up between lawmakers and could make this session, Shawn, more contentious and difficult than might be expected when the governor and the House and the Senate majorities are from the same party.
Shawn Ashley: Similar but different might be the theme of the 2023 legislative session. We're just two weeks in and already Republicans are showing differences on proposals regarding taxes, educational savings accounts and now common education funding, as well as banning gender transition services for minors. The trick for legislative leaders will be finding the common ground on all of these. Of course, it can be like playing Jenga. Sometimes you move a piece and the whole tower comes crashing down.
Dick Pryor: Yes. And that's what makes this all interesting. Thanks, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
Announcer: Race might be a hot topic right now, but for so many of us, talking about race is nothing new. On the Code Switch podcast from NPR. We go beyond the headlines, and we go deep. Listen now.
Governor Kevin Stitt delivers 2023 State of the State address (Feb. 6, 2023)(John Huntley)TRANSCRIPT
Capitol Insider sponsored by the Oklahoma State Medical Association. Keeping Oklahoma physicians informed about advances in medical technologies, treatments and after care. More on the vision and mission of OSMA at okmed.org.
Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. Shawn, Governor Kevin Stitt delivered his State of the State address last Monday. It included statements of philosophy and several goals in the first week of the session. Are you seeing movement on any of the governor's priorities?
Shawn Ashley: There has been some, but not a lot. Bills were assigned to committee on Tuesday and more than 100 were heard. But those were mostly less controversial measures that were easier to get passed.
Shawn Ashley: Democrats have long called for the elimination of the state sales tax on groceries and the governor wants that. Can everybody get along on that one?
Shawn Ashley: I think the answer is maybe. House Democrat Leader Cyndi Munson said she was happy to see the governor embrace the idea for a second consecutive year in his State of the State speech. Senate Democrat leader Kay Floyd was a little more cautious. She said her caucus supported eliminating the state sales tax on groceries, but wants to know what strings might be attached, what other tax cuts might be involved. House Speaker Charles McCall, speaking Thursday to the Oklahoma Press Association, once again expressed his support for eliminating the state sales tax on groceries, along with reductions of the individual and corporate income tax rates. Senate President Pro Tem Greg Treat's comments at the Press Association meeting were a little more reserved. Treat said the Republican caucus wants to enact tax reform, which he has said in the past would be more than simply eliminating a specific tax or cutting rates. And something I noticed: Treat joined other Republicans in a standing ovation when Stitt said in his State of the State speech, “Let's cut taxes.” But Treat did not seem to rise to his feet with McCall and other Republicans when Stitt mentioned the grocery, income, and corporate tax rates.
Dick Pryor: Governor Stitt placed additional money for education savings accounts, vouchers, in his executive budget. Is that an idea where the governor is going to run into legislative opposition?
Shawn Ashley: That does seem likely. Democrats flatly opposed the idea. Pro Tem Treat, who carried the bill last year that failed in the Senate, said Thursday he remains a huge believer in improving public schools by fostering more competition for them. However, he said he is not sure many senators will support the idea again this year. McCall, who announced his opposition to Treat’s bill at the Press Association's conference last year, said Thursday, “The House view today is much like it was last year. Everybody sees it still the same way this year,” he said. McCall added, “I don't think you're going to see that come out of the House. The House looks at things in terms of "will a piece of legislation do something for a student in all parts of the state?”
Dick Pryor: The governor prominently called for the legislature to ban all gender transition surgeries and hormone therapies on minors. That is something on which the legislature has taken quick action.
Shawn Ashley: That's right. The Senate Rules Committee advanced a bill Wednesday that prohibits health care professionals from providing most gender transition services to children under 18 years of age. Senator Julie Daniels, the bill's author, said, “This legislation speaks to what we in the legislature believe is the best policy for our state to protect children under the age of 18 from these irreversible medical transitions.” Senate Minority Leader Kay Floyd, however, noted in questions and debate on the bill that the legislature is and I quote, “interfering with a parent's right to make medical decisions for their child. And that's a very slippery slope.”
Dick Pryor: Shawn, in the week ahead, what are the plans for hearing bills on the floor?
Shawn Ashley: Senate Majority Leader Greg McCortney hopes to begin hearing bills that have made it out of committee on the Senate floor. And the Senate will be meeting twice daily, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. And it's not unusual to see the House start taking up bills in the second or third weeks of the session.
Dick Pryor: Okay. Thanks, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. If you have questions, email them to news@kgou.org or contact us on twitter @kgounews and @QuorumCallShawn. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
Announcer: Race might be a hot topic right now, but for so many of us, talking about race is nothing new. On the Code Switch podcast from NPR, we go beyond the headlines and we go deep. Listen now.
TRANSCRIPT
Capitol Insider sponsored by the Oklahoma State Medical Association, physician members who devote more than 11 years of higher education and 10,000 clinical hours in study to provide care for all Oklahomans. More at okmed.org.
Dick Pryor: This is Capitol Insider - taking you inside politics, policy and government in Oklahoma. I'm Dick Pryor with Quorum Call publisher Shawn Ashley. The new legislative session officially began last month with organizational day, and the action accelerates during the noon hour this Monday when Governor Kevin Stitt delivers his State of the State address. We'll be covering the speech and airing it live on KGOU beginning at 12:30. Shawn, what else happens at the Capitol on State of the State Day?
Shawn Ashley: In addition to delivering his State of the State speech, Governor Stitt will drop his executive budget for fiscal year 2024, which will provide more details about the various proposals he will likely outline in his speech. Perhaps the most important thing legislatively is that most of the bills and joint resolutions that were filed before the January 19th deadline will be first read. That allows them to be second read on Tuesday and assigned to committees so that lawmakers can begin considering them. The Senate plans to hit the ground running and has committee meetings scheduled Tuesday where bills will be considered for the first time this session.
Dick Pryor: Now, more than 3,000 bills and joint resolutions have been filed, and you've said there is something for everyone. But themes and priorities do emerge. Shawn, what are you seeing as the direction of this first session of the new legislature?
Shawn Ashley: Well, as usually is the case, there are a lot of bills related to education, nearly 300. Some deal with what should and what should not be taught in classrooms. Some would modify graduation requirements and others propose raises for teachers and support personnel.
Nearly 60 bills were filed regarding firearms and weapons. Some would lower the age that someone is allowed to open or conceal carry to 18 from 21. Others would expand the list of places where a person is allowed to carry a firearm, and some would change the training necessary to obtain a concealed carry permit.
There are more than 25 bills related to abortion. One would clarify that abortions are legal to preserve the life of the mother and defines what those medical emergencies are. It also provides that abortions would be legal in cases of rape or incest that are reported to law enforcement. On the other hand, there are two bills that allow women who obtain abortions to be criminally prosecuted, which currently is prohibited under state statute. Another changes the definition of abortion to include any substance designed or intended to cause expulsion of an unborn child, effectively making abortion-inducing drugs that can be taken at home illegal.
And then there are more than a dozen bills addressing transgender medical care and procedures. Most would prohibit those procedures in the state and subject any doctor who performs them to loss of their license and possible criminal prosecution.
Dick Pryor: In his State of the State speech a year ago, Governor Stitt called for repeal of the tax on groceries. He's also called on lawmakers to reduce the individual income tax rate. Are you seeing any movement in that direction?
Shawn Ashley: There are some bills related to tax cuts, but really nothing of significance. And by that I mean something authored by the House speaker or Senate president pro tem or the budget committee chairs who are the likely authors of any meaningful tax cut legislation. And some members may be reluctant to vote for tax cuts after the legislative Office of Fiscal Transparency (LOFT) suggested in its report on modernizing business taxes that Oklahoma should consider increasing its financial reserves to offset downturns in revenue collections before it cuts taxes. I say some members may be reluctant because there are others, such as Democrats, who support reducing the grocery sales tax, for example, and even House Appropriations and Budget Chair Kevin Wallace, who told me in December that he expected the state's current level of reserves would prompt discussions on tax cuts or rebates this session.
Dick Pryor: If people want to visit the Capitol to observe or meet with elected officials, where should they go to park and enter now?
Shawn Ashley: My advice is to park in the south lot of spaces available or in the parking lot east of Lincoln Boulevard. If you park in the south lot, veer to the right or east as you cross the plaza to take the ramp down to the visitor's center. If you park in the lot east of Lincoln, take the tunnel to the visitor's entrance. Recent security upgrades at the Capitol have really made it impossible to cross Lincoln Boulevard and go directly into the Capitol.
Dick Pryor: Thank you, Shawn.
Shawn Ashley: You're very welcome.
Dick Pryor: And that's Capitol Insider. Until next time, with Shawn Ashley, I'm Dick Pryor.
Announcer: Race might be a hot topic right now, but for so many of us, talking about race is nothing new. On the Code Switch podcast from NPR we go beyond the headlines and we go deep. Listen now.
Two of Oklahoma's newest statewide elected officials have signaled their intentions for the start of their terms, and change is in the air.
Now, the fun starts. Thursday was the bill filing deadline for the 2023 Oklahoma legislative session, and a late push saw lawmakers break the 3,000 mark.
Inauguration Day has come and gone and now Governor Kevin Stitt, the Oklahoma legislature and new State Superintendent Ryan Walters begin work on what could be a transformational 2023 in state government.
With Inauguration Day coming Monday, major story lines are shaping up for the 2023 Oklahoma Legislative Session.
KGOU's Dick Pryor and QuorumCall's Shawn Ashley continue their countdown of the top ten Oklahoma stories of 2022. Which story will be number 1?
Dick Pryor and Shawn Ashley look back at the top stories of the year in Oklahoma politics, policy and government to close out 2022. In this week's segment, they unveil stories ten through six.
Oklahoma legislators have a month to go before the bill filing deadline, and already some are generating discussion and headlines.
The deadline for legislators to request bills and joint resolutions for drafting passed on Friday, December 9th. We look at the next steps in the process as lawmakers prepare for the 2023 legislative session.
A District Court judge has dealt a setback to the Oklahoma Turnpike Authority by ruling the Authority willfully violated the Open Meeting Act with deceptive language in meeting agendas and documents during action on the ACCESS Oklahoma turnpike expansion project.
Former state representative and gubernatorial candidate Joe Dorman has a new idea to encourage voting in Oklahoma - a comic book directed at young people to explain the importance of civic responsibility.
Oklahoma's 2022 general election saw another victorious night for Republican candidates from the state legislature to Congress.
The 2022 General Election is Tuesday. And while most legislative races have already been determined, the statewide races still to be decided may present some surprises.
Capitol Insider talks to the Republican Party nominee for governor of Oklahoma: Governor Kevin Stitt.
Capitol Insider talks to the Democratic Party nominee for governor of Oklahoma: State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister.
Capitol Insider talks to the Democratic Party nominee for governor of Oklahoma: State Superintendent Joy Hofmeister.
Over the last few days, Governor Kevin Stitt has announced three key leadership appointments, subject to Senate confirmation.
Over the last few days, Governor Kevin Stitt has announced three key leadership appointments, subject to Senate confirmation.
With the drought continuing, the Oklahoma Conservation Commission adopted a plan proposed by the Emergency Drought Commission to deliver $33,000 in emergency funds to each Oklahoma county. The legislature also allocated an additional $20 million for the second phase of the plan, which is also on its way to farmers and ranchers.
With the drought continuing, the Oklahoma Conservation Commission adopted a plan proposed by the Emergency Drought Commission to deliver $33,000 in emergency funds to each Oklahoma county. The legislature also allocated an additional $20 million for the second phase of the plan, which is also on its way to farmers and ranchers.
Lawmakers returned to the Capitol on Wednesday to appropriate about $1.4 billion in federal ARPA funding, and despite debate over how the funds should be used, the work is finished unless a small group of legislators succeeds in extending the session to consider other issues.
Lawmakers returned to the Capitol on Wednesday to appropriate about $1.4 billion in federal ARPA funding, and despite debate over how the funds should be used, the work is finished unless a small group of legislators succeeds in extending the session to consider other issues.
It has taken a year, but Oklahoma lawmakers are close to finishing the process of appropriating $1.8 billion in pandemic relief funds received from the federal government.
It has taken a year, but Oklahoma lawmakers are close to finishing the process of appropriating $1.8 billion in pandemic relief funds received from the federal government.
Joint Committee on Pandemic Relief Funding working groups evaluating requests for federal funding are picking up the pace as they head toward a special session.
Joint Committee on Pandemic Relief Funding working groups evaluating requests for federal funding are picking up the pace as they head toward a special session.
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma seeking to prevent the state's new public school bathroom law (SB 615) limiting bathroom access for transgender students from being enforced. The lawsuit (Bridge v. Oklahoma State Department of Education) asserts the new is unconstitutional and violates Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma seeking to prevent the state's new public school bathroom law (SB 615) limiting bathroom access for transgender students from being enforced. The lawsuit (Bridge v. Oklahoma State Department of Education) asserts the new is unconstitutional and violates Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972.
Oklahoma has already legalized medical marijuana, now proponents of legalization of recreational marijuana have passed a major legal hurdle and are pushing for the Constitutional amendment to be on the Oklahoma ballot in November.
New research indicates white Christian Nationalism is growing across the United States and having an effect on campaigns and elections. The co-author of a new book explains some of the findings and how the ideology is influencing the political climate heading into the 2022 General Election.
Few legislative races are on the Oklahoma Primary Runoff Election ballot, so most eyes will be on the races for U.S. Senate and the 2nd Congressional District party runoffs.
Several recent changes in Oklahoma education laws have teachers and administrators evaluating legal interpretations and implementing new rules.
Oklahoma has some of the strictest anti-abortion laws in the nation, and an upcoming court ruling may help determine whether a Kansas-like Constitutional right to personal autonomy, including the decision to obtain an abortion, also exists in Oklahoma.
A rauccous State Board of Education meeting saw emotions bubble up over politics, race and personal accusations amid accreditation of state schools.
State officials are being called out by the inspector general of the U.S. Department of Education for irregularities in the disbursal of federal dollars allocated to governors to support education during the COVID-19 pandemic. A recently released investigative audit report details the findings and corrective action required.
In one of its last decisions of the 2021-22 term, the U.S. Supreme Court threw out almost two hundred years of American jurisprudence to side with the state of Oklahoma, according to a professor of Indian Law at the University of Oklahoma.
In spite of nagging inflation, Oklahoma enters the 2023 fiscal year in strong financial shape, according to State Treasurer Randy McDaniel's annual gross revenue report.
Oklahoma voters went to the polls on June 28th to cast ballots in local, state and federal elections. While many Oklahoma elective offices have already been filled, voters also delivered some interesting results.
Oklahoma is one of 13 states with abortion "trigger laws" designed to go into effect in the event the U.S. Supreme Court banned the right to obtain an abortion. On Friday, the Court announced its decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, triggering Oklahoma's anti-abortion law.
Legislators returned to the State Capitol on June 13th for the start of the third special session, called to consider repeal of the grocery sales tax and reduction of the state individual income tax rate. The extraordinary session ended when the House of Representatives adjourned Sine Die with leaders of the two houses disagreeing over the results.
Oklahoma legislators called a special session to approve legislation authorizing expenditures of federal funding for projects under the American Rescue Plan Act. In late May, Governor Kevin Stitt called another special session to consider tax cuts. In the week ahead, the Oklahoma capitol will see a rarity - two special sessions going at the same time.
High prices are squeezing families across the nation and Oklahoma lawmakers get ready to return for a special session to address inflation, University of Oklahoma economist Dr. Robert Dauffenbach explains the economic forces causing the surge.
As they raced toward the 5:00 p.m. Friday deadline for completing the 2022 legislative regular session, members of the state House and Senate decisively overrode six of Governor Kevin Stitt's bill vetoes and hinted at more differences of opinion in the upcoming special session.
On the final day of the 2022 regular legislative session, lawmakers unleashed a flurry of votes to override vetoes by Governor Kevin Stitt and passed multiple bills for appropriation of federal American Rescue Plan Act funds.
As they completed their work in the 2022 Regular Session, Oklahoma lawmakers sent to the governor a state budget for fiscal year 2023 that provides additional appropriated dollars for various law enforcement agencies.
In the waning days of the 2022 regular Oklahoma Legislative Session, Oklahoma lawmakers entered into a special session to consider how to spend almost two billion dollars in federal money the state has received under the American Rescue Plan Act.
By law, the legislative session must end by 5:00 p.m. on the last Friday in May, and the last big item on this year's agenda is the release of the fiscal year 2023 budget agreement.
The most important part of the legislative session is still a work in progress. With three weeks left before the Legislature adjourns sine die, budget negotiators are moving closer to finalizing the state budget and appropriations for the next fiscal year.
One day after the speaker of the house announced formation of a special committee to investigate a contract between the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department and a restaurant providing food services at six state parks, the agency's executive director, Jerry Winchester, resigned and Governor Kevin Stitt announced the state has filed a lawsuit against Swadley's Foggy Bottom Kitchen for breach of contract.
Almost $700 million in rebate incentives will be available soon to attract a new large business to the state.
A majority of Oklahoma legislators celebrated Oklahoma's newest law that criminalizes abortion and makes the medical procedure virtually impossible to obtain. Arguably, it's the strictest such law in the nation, but additional anti-abortion legislation is also moving closer to passage.
Oklahoma made national news this week with passage of one of the most restrictive and punitive anti-abortion bills in the nation, which Governor Kevin Stitt is expected to sign. The bill's progress to final passage caught some lawmakers and political insiders by surprise.
Oklahoma legislators tasked with oversight of state fiscal transparency had some tough questions for the director of the Oklahoma Tourism and Recreation Department, focusing on financial accountability and customer service at state parks.
A bill that would direct tax dollars into an account to help parents pay for private school tuition met stiff opposition, and defeat, in the Oklahoma Senate.
Even in a spring break-shortened week, Oklahoma legislators stayed ahead of schedule in moving bills closer to floor debate and possible passage.
Oklahoma's State Senate approved legislation to further limit abortion in the state and to prepare for the U.S. Supreme Court's decision on the constitutionality of a Mississippi anti-abortion law.
In the last week, Oklahoma legislators acted on more than 400 bills in the House and Senate. With a committee deadline upon them, they employed numerous procedural methods to push favored legislation forward.
Oklahoma's senior U.S. Senator James Inhofe has announced plans to retire, bringing to a close a long and storied political career that began in 1967. Inhofe has served in the U.S. Senate since 1994 and is the Ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee. Inhofe plans to remain in the Senate until January 3, 2023.
Bills regulating vaccinations were among the most popular filed in the Oklahoma legislature this year and already lawmakers are indicating the extent to which they will go in establishing vaccine policy.
In a surprise move for the first week of the legislative session, Speaker of the Oklahoma House of Representatives Charles McCall has announced a school choice bill authored by Senate President Pro Tempore Greg Treat will not be heard in the House.
As he prepares to deliver his 2022 State of the State Address, Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt told KGOU's Dick Pryor and Quorum Call's Shawn Ashley about his goals for the upcoming legislative session and fourth year in office. KGOU will air the annual State of the State Address live at 12:30 p.m. on Monday, February 7.
While rejecting 32 of the 33 petitions filed by the State of Oklahoma regarding its 2020 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma, the U.S. Supreme Court set an April hearing date for further consideration of the effect of the decision on the federal Major Crimes Act.
Bills were flying fast and furiously on Thursday as lawmakers rushed to file legislation ahead of the bill filing deadline for the 2022 Oklahoma Legislative Session.
Oklahoma's economy begins 2022 in a strong position. Dr. Robert Dauffenbach, Senior Associate Dean for Economic Development and Impact at the University of Oklahoma Price College of Business, says economic conditions are largely positive to start the year, but uncertainty over inflation, unemployment and interest rates are cause for concern.
The State Board of Equalization has certified that more than 10 billion dollars is available for the legislature and governor to spend in the Fiscal Year 2023 budget.
In the final Capitol Insider segment of 2021, Dick and Shawn discuss the top five political and government stories of the year in Oklahoma.
We close the year with a discussion of the top ten stories of the year in Oklahoma, beginning this week with numbers ten through six.
The latest figures for the State of Oklahoma's General Revenue Fund indicate a dramatic increase in funding - more than a third higher than estimates - fueled by a strong economy.
Bolstered by an improved cash rebate program, Oklahoma is rapidly becoming an attractive location for television and movie producers - bringing jobs, dollars and prestige to the state.
Armed with a $10 million budget to pursue lawsuits against the federal government, state Attorney General John O'Connor is seeking an injunction to prevent the U.S. Department of Defense from requiring members of the Oklahoma National Guard to be vaccinated against COVID-19.
Statewide elections in Oklahoma are less than a year away, so this is a good time to look ahead to the political climate that will influence the races, with Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma, Dr. Allyson Shortle.
Following nearly a year of work, the Oklahoma legislature has approved new boundaries for legislative and congressional districts that will be in place for the next ten years.
With new U.S. Census figures in hand, the Oklahoma legislature has re-drawn legislative and congressional districts that will influence Oklahoma elections and politics for the next decade. The proposed new congressional districts, however, have generated controversy.
The Stitt Administration is increasing efforts to oppose federal COVID-19 vaccination requirements for federal contractors, members of the National Guard and large businesses in Oklahoma.
Six years after pausing the administration of the death penalty in the state, Oklahoma carried out an execution on Thursday that did not go according to plan. During injection of the three-drug cocktail, inmate John Grant convulsed more than two dozen times and vomited, before losing consciousness and dying in the execution chamber. Witnesses described a gruesome sight, and the Grant execution casts doubt over the next executions the state is planning, including that of Julius Jones.
Oklahoma Commissioner of Health, Dr. Lance Frye, resigned Friday afternoon, just a day after Governor Kevin Stitt lambasted the agency upon learning it had agreed to issue a birth certificate designating the applicant's gender as non-binary, rather than male or female. The governor also directed harsh rhetoric at the Oklahoma Court of Criminal Appeals after it ruled, following U.S. Supreme Court precedent, that Congress has never disestablished the reservation of the Quapaw Nation. The decision made the Quapaw Nation the latest tribal nation in Oklahoma to have its reservation judicially confirmed.
Tribal governments responding to the U.S. Supreme Court's 2020 decision in McGirt v. Oklahoma have looked to negotiation to resolve differences with the state of Oklahoma. Chickasaw Nation senior counsel Stephen Greetham discusses frustrations Native American tribes have experienced in pursuing tribal-state dialogue. In the previous episode of Capitol Insider our guest was Gov. Kevin Stitt's special counsel for McGirt matters, Ryan Leonard.
In July 2020, the U.S. Supreme Court determined, in McGirt v. Oklahoma, that Oklahoma does not have jurisdiction over crimes committed on tribal land against tribal citizens. The decision has raised concerns about how far the ruling extends into other areas of state-tribal relations. We discuss with the special counsel to Governor Kevin Stitt, Ryan Leonard. In our next episode, we will talk about McGirt with Stephen Greetham, senior counsel to the Chickasaw Nation.
Governor Kevin Stitt has rejected a recommendation to commute the death sentence of Death Row inmate Julius Jones, whose case has drawn national attention. The governor will not make a decision about Jones's fate until after a clemency hearing in late October.
Governor Kevin Stitt has set November 15th as the date for legislators to begin a special session to complete their work on apportioning Oklahoma's legislative and Congressional districts. Due to unexpected figures from the U.S. Census Bureau each district is likely to be affected.